Posted on 09/23/2007 8:54:51 AM PDT by submarinerswife
Edited on 09/23/2007 9:01:27 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
I am 64, so I still have a ration book issued in my name in 1943. We are the bridge to the baby boomers. I can recall serving on the USS Iwo Jima [LPH-2] taking the 1/26th Marine Battalion to Vietnam. On the way over we stopped by the island of Iwo Jima and held a ceremony in honor of the battle on the flight deck with the Marines on deck including two Gunneys who had been in the battle. A moving moment and a real life link to the past.
I certainly appreciate the distinction you are making and the historical context added from that time.
Clearly, from today’s perspective they don’t merit the term concentration camps if you view them against the ones we have been made aware of in Germany, Poland, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cambodia or most recently the Balkans.
I would never as you say “jump on” those who used the vocabulary of the day. In this case, the term is applied in the present tense with all the horrors between.
Thanks for the note and for your father’s service to our nation.
I am the same age. First memories a lot of people still in uniform. I tried to sign up for Vietnam, stupid probably, but they dithered around so much I got a job in a defense plant and then the draft board didn’t want me at all. So I worked in the shipyard building submarines.
Sometimes I think the men themselves, in the heat of battle, with limited ability to see the overall battlefield picture, were unaware of whether or not their mission was successful in the moment. My father was sent on a special forces mission for 55 days to the hills over the Anzio beachhead. They were “off the radar” as they were intentionally cut off from radio contact (for as much surprise and secrecy from the Germans as possible). The Germans had set up the huge guns on railroad tracks so they could shoot at Anzio beach and then pull the guns back into the caves quickly for protection from Allied artillery that was called in on them. Daddy’s little bunch was charged with the duty of taking out those big guns. He told me years ago that “we took out a lot of them, too”. I don’t think he was ever aware of just how much it meant to the men on the Anzio beachhead to have the big guns shut down. Burns did a good job of pulling a lot together in a digest sort of way. I can’t imagine men seeing in full color and in total what we are seeing on television in part and in black and white.
“It is revisionist history. And it is still going on.”
Yes it is and because of the emotionalism attached to it people will believe it. That is one thing that the MSM and Hollywood have learned to do exceptionally well. Burns also presents it from the perspective of todays social & political mores.
Nonsense. I watched the episode. This was not just something that individuals recounted under the condition of how they felt in 1942. Burns injected thru the narrator the business about "Dugout Doug" and the fact that MacArthur and his family left from Corregidor or that he only visited the troops once on the Bataan Peninsula. There were other gratuitous negative remarks about MacArthur.
I am not a big fan of MacArthur but to impugn him and his actions without putting them into context is distorting history. The fact that MacArthur had the temerity to challenge HST or to consider running for President as a Rep may have had something to do with Burns' characterization of him.
I volunteered and don't regret it. In the words of George S. Patton,
"There is one great thing you men will all be able to say when you go home. You may thank God for it. Thank God, that at least, thirty years from now, when you are sitting around the fireside with your grandson on your knees, and he asks you what you did in the great war, you won't have to cough and say, "I shoveled shit in Louisiana."
You got it.
There was a series in the movie theaters they showed in between the features and cartoons called ‘The Big Picture’. It put some of the individual actions into perspective and no doubt many who were there then didn’t know the big picture at the time. It was black and white, as was most all film including some cartoons then. It wasn’t until the 50s that I saw some color film from the war and actually thought the war was fought in black and white, one of those things you do when you haven’t thought about it.
Just jumped in from another thread. Glad to hear I'm not the only one who thinks Burns is shoving "thought" down our throat. This is a 2007 viewpoint and attempt to revise 1940 America. Period. It has nothing to do with history and is camouflaged by unreleased footage is all.
Burns said something about official archives and he was surprised to see the color film since he had seen black and white copies of some of the same footage before and assumed the originals were black and white.
As Clemenceau famously quoted, "War is a series of calamaties that result in victory." And Lord knows there were plenty of calamaties from our side during the war. They are in every war. The best battle plans never survive the first shot.
It's the slant that comes through in spades. Burns is the leading propagandist for the left. The fact that so many on this forum can't recognize it tells me he has his viewers right where he wants them.
Thanks for the feedback. My Dad was 9 years old in Berlin and experienced the allied bombing raids first hand. I never heard him talking about that whatsoever.
When I visited my grandmother (rest in peace) there in ‘74, she told me about living in the bombshelters at the time. She had nothing but excellent remarks to say about how he dealt with the hardships he had to go through at the time. Despite he being her son, she was impressed (more like amazed) at how he handled himself, listened to and did what she said (without question or hesitation) during what she said would be a most frightening and horrific experience for any child of that age. She said he never quailed, despite they huddling in total pitch black while the air raids went on around them. She said while others screamed and cried, he was silent. Kept all his personal belongings and valuable possession together, able to dress himself and evacuate in total blackness without a moments notice.
She told me of one of the last raids they went to before evacuating out of the city and relocating to Lake Constance area. All the local bomb shelters had already been destroyed. So they took refuge in the basement of the apartment building they lived in, along with other families. A bomb landed in the street in front of the building. A bomb blew apart the buildings on both sides of the building and one landed in the alley behind the building. A bomb hit the building that they were in directly, traveled through three or four floors and came to rest in the middle of the ground floor of the building. It was a dud. If it was not, I’d not be here to write this post.
I asked a lot of questions, and she did the best to answer them. Hoever, there came a time when she got this really pained look in her face and said she really didn’t want to talk about it anymore (the memories where just too painful).
My Dad’s Dad was a battalion tank commander who died in some nameless Russian POW camp some time (decade+) after the war. She said that they were in communication through the Red Cross for some years after the war, but the communication became more and more sporadic. Eventually the correspondance was returned unopened. Nor was there any response or reply to any inquiries made on my Grandfather’s behalf. Sometime in the late 50’s (early 60’s) some Soviet government military attache showed up at her doorstep with a box and stated these were her husband’s personal effects, have a nice day and left.
WOW. Thanks for being here, raygun.
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