They died – and now we sneer

Daily Telegraph ^ | January 30, 2005 | Leo McKinsry

[cyborg]

ping

[Doctor Raoul]

Heck of an article.

[Petronski]

Wisely surmised and written. The French Jews of today face the same gathering storm as the late 30s in Europe. "Never again" has become folly or farce in 21st Century Europe.

And I too was moved to tears in an American cemetary in France (above Omaha Beach).

Vosges is "voh-zhay" BTW.

[Blue Collar Christian]

Thank you for posting this. It is a nice break from the usual anti-American tripe out of Europe. I have begun to think there is something bad in their water. Perhaps there is, but some few folks are immune to the bug.

[LasVegasMac]

And I too was moved to tears in an American cemetary in France (above Omaha Beach).

I would love to do that, just not sure if I could maintain composure.

That must have been an awesome experience.

LVM

[maine-iac7]

Amen

I wonder - I once heard that, in a strange twist, that when someone's life has been saved by someone else, the one saved ends up, after time, resenting the one who saved them - by some quirk of the human psyche -

'wonder if that's what's going on subliminally in the minds of the French and Germans? We saved thier sorry butts and they resent it...

'rather like the subconscious group-guilt that still lingers - that causes a discrimination-resentment effect - with Americans over what was done to the Native Americans by their ancestors. It's misplaced, we are not to blame for what anyone did a hundred - 200 or 1,000 years ago...but it's there, nonetheless. Maybe a 'genetic memory' thing? (Hmm, maybe I could get a million dollar grant to study this theory? ;o)

[Petronski]

I didn't bawl, but as I walked those grounds (perhaps two hours), I had the lump in the throat and the dizzying dull sense of awe and I kept wiping my eyes.

I stood on Omaha Beach at low tide and stared up at that shore, trying to imagine tank traps and whithering enemy fire.

I said a prayer of thanks over a Christian man's plot and I laid a stone on a Jewish man's marker.

Then I went back to my hotel and got drunk.



I will never forget it. Not one moment.

[cyborg]

http://www.abmc.gov/no.htm

[protest1]

"tellingly, the Muslim Council of Britain refused to take part in the Holocaust commemorations."

I think that tells you all you need to know about Islam, if you did not know already.

[Petronski]

That's the one.


It's a glorious, exhausting, beautiful place....hallowed ground.

[cyborg]

Remember what Colin Powell said (paraphrasing)... we never took land, but only asked for some to bury our dead. They should put his words on a plaque there.

[Petronski]

I remember LBJ's redeeming moment. De Gaulle was pulling out of NATO and Johnson sent an emissary. De Gaulle told the emissary "we want all American troops off of French soil" by a date certain.

When this got back to LBJ, he insisted on a very specific response: "We will need more time than that to remove our dead from Normandy." De Gaulle left the meeting in a huff and nothing further was ever said.

[Capt. Tom]

America's action was purely altruistic. Whereas Russia was engaged in a life-and-death struggle for survival, the USA was not directly threatened by the Nazi domination of Europe.

That is true. But Germans made a mistake in declaring war on us. They should have left us out of it. - Tom

On December 11, 1941, Hitler gave a speech to the Reichstag. Confused and rambling, he compared his own childhood of poverty to that of the wealthy Roosevelt. He declared war on the United States.

December 11, 1941

The President's Message (FDR) To the Congress of the United States:

On the morning of Dec. 11 the Government of Germany, pursuing its course of world conquest, declared war against the United States. The long-known and the long-expected has thus taken place. The forces endeavoring to enslave the entire world now are moving toward this hemisphere. Never before has there been a greater challenge to life, liberty and civilization. Delay invites great danger. Rapid and united effort by all of the peoples of the world who are determined to remain free will insure a world victory of the forces of justice and of righteousness over the forces of savagery and of barbarism. Italy also has declared war against the United States.

I therefore request the Congress to recognize a state of war between the United States and Germany, and between the United States and Italy.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

[LasVegasMac]

Thank you!

LVM

[Publius Scipio]

And I too was moved to tears in an American cemetary in France (above Omaha Beach).

Yes, I've been through that cemetary and all the Normandy battlefields. It is a very powerful and moving experience.

I would heartily recommend that pilgrimage to all.

[1john2 3and4]

They We died – and now we they sneer

[Malesherbes]

I visited the Normandy cemetaries a dozen years ago and was both moved and proud. It was a bright day and the graves were beautifully kept. May it always be so.

Not too far away was a German cemetary, also well kept but very somber with a large granite Teutonic cross in the middle. I found myself moved by it too, for it was full of youth barely out of their teens - dead for a hateful cause which they probably did not fully understand.

[DCPatriot]

And just how do we know for sure Germany doesn't own a few dozen suitcase nukes right now?

[gatorbait]

The big cemetary at St.Avold will stop you cold,close to 11,000 there and 14,000 plus Doughboys at Vincennes. Now at Draguinan, there are less than a thousand, but the graves are well taken care of, with tenderness and love by their French caretakers.