Please Freepmail me to be added to the Ollie North ping list.
Posted on 06/05/2008 9:08:43 PM PDT by jazusamo
WASHINGTON -- Sixty-four years ago this week, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came on the radio and implored Americans to "devote themselves in a continuance of prayer invoking thy help to our efforts." The "effort" of which he spoke was Operation Overlord, the D-Day landing of 150,000 American and Allied troops at Normandy. The risks were so great that Winston Churchill told the people of Britain: "The invasion has been launched. The result is with God." FDR described it as "a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity."
Since then, those who fought their way ashore June 6, 1944, and successfully breached Hitler's Atlantic Wall have been honored justifiably for their participation in the momentous event. On the 40th anniversary of the operation, Ronald Reagan stood on that "lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France" and spoke of that "giant undertaking unparalleled in human history" and praised "the boys of Pointe du Hoc the heroes who helped end a war."
But that was then; and this is now. This year, the anniversary of their achievement received little notice in the so-called mainstream media. Perhaps that's because it would draw uncomfortable parallels between those who stormed the coast of France in 1944 and those who are fighting now -- and winning -- a war against radical Islam. Unlike those who braved their way into Hitler's Fortress Europe, the young Americans fighting today's battles reap few accolades from the potentates of the press or the liberal "leadership" in Washington.
Last month, Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., described those now serving in our armed forces as "mercenaries" and claimed "we're buying them now." Apparently taking a page from Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign playbook, McDermott believes the young Americans winning this generation's war are those who could not get jobs or get into school. McDermott, you may recall, once was willing to negotiate -- without preconditions -- with Saddam Hussein. Now he is co-sponsoring legislation to require compulsory military conscription.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who has asserted false claims of flying combat missions in Vietnam, routinely denigrates many of those serving in today's all-volunteer military. Two weeks ago, in attacking Sen. John McCain, Harkin observed, "It's one thing to have been drafted and served but another thing when you come from generations of military people and that's just how you're steeped, how you've learned, how you've grown up."
All of this amplifies a steady -- and unfortunately unanswered -- chorus from the far left that the U.S. military has been sent on "Mission: Impossible" by the Bush administration. It's a refrain that began when House Majority Whip James Clyburn confessed last year that if the surge turned out to be a success, it would be "a real big problem for us." By December, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had entered the echo chamber and began asserting -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- "the surge hasn't accomplished its goals."
Reid's unwillingness to acknowledge the success of our troops is amplified by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Pelosi declared that while some progress is being made, it is because of "the good will of the Iranians. They decided in Basra when the fighting would end. They negotiated that cessation of hostilities -- the Iranians." Let's hope she had someone on her staff send the theocrats in Tehran a box of chocolates and a thank you note.
Those who persist in spreading a diatribe of disaster -- and who insist on denigrating the brightest, best-trained, best-led and best-equipped military force in the world -- have succeeded in building a significant following. The facts on the ground, however, simply don't support their thesis. In Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and the Philippines, the war against radical Islamic terror is being won by the finest military force the world ever has seen.
Even the editors of the liberal Washington Post finally have conceded this reality. A recent editorial baldly warned about Iraq: "Don't look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war." And it took to task those who comprise "the 'this-war-is-lost' caucus." Also, this week the foreign minister of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates visited the Iraqi capital for discussions on reopening their embassy in Baghdad.
The victories over al-Qaida and the Shiite militias in Iraq, against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's remnant in Afghanistan, and over Muslim terrorists in Somalia and the Philippines have been won by U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines -- and the new allies they have advised and trained in these countries. Those who landed on the beaches of Normandy 64 years ago were American heroes. So are those who serve today.
Please Freepmail me to be added to the Ollie North ping list.
FDR and Churchill would be charged with a hate crime today, especially in the UK.
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest — until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them — help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment — let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
Thy will be done, Almighty God.
Amen.
Franklin D. Roosevelt - June 6, 1944
“finest military force the world has ever seen”
That is true of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Amen!
Thank you, Bender2.
After his death in 1971, I found inside his wallet, a faded copy of FDR's prayer my Father had cut from a newspaper. So, that is why I know the prayer so well.
MESS WITH THE BEST, DIE WITH THE REST
Interesting and touching story, thanks for relating it.
We all owe a great deal to your later Father and the hundreds of thousands like him. I doubt there’s many of us over 55 or so that didn’t have at least one relative in WWII, I had several but only one living now.
Good for her and our thanks to her. I’ve been married to a WAC for over forty years, I guess I’m prejudiced in favor of women in the military. :)
Most folks in DC are nauseating.
If you are killed or injured in an invasion or even training for one, you have paid an enormous price for your country. If you weren't killed or wounded, there is one salient point. Compared to most of the Pacific invasions and, for that matter, the Battle of Normandy that followed, D-Day was a cake walk.
BUMP!
Oliver North served his country well and continues to. He’s one of the few journalists I’m not skeptical of when reading about our military and government.
Holy cow, that guy’s arm is huge.
Also, if the same MSM was around then the report would be that 367 civilians were killed during the invasion ..... no mention of our troops ....
I have to feel a little sorry for the Taliban who had to face a couple of hundred like him.......NAH!LOL.
Thank you for a great post. I pasted it into my D-Day file. Here is a D-Day I always like to relate.
On the night of June 5, 23,400 American and British paratroopers dropped behind the D-Day beaches from 2395 aircraft and 867 gliders. This air assault was attempted just 17 years after Charles Lindberg flew across the Atlantic for the first time. To the last moment Ike’s air commander Leigh-Mallory saw only tragedy from air assault, predicting hundreds of planes and gliders would be lost, and surviving paratroopers would be isolated and killed. He had specific intelligence the German 9tst Air Landing Division, specialists in fighting paratroopers, and the 6th Parachute Regiment had inexplicably moved into the area around St. Mere-Eglise, where the American divisions were to land. Ike remained strategically committed, but compassionately devoted to the men.
The evening before D-Day, Eisenhower left SHAEF headquarters at 6 PM, traveling to Newbury where the 101st Airborne was boarding for its first combat assignment. Ike arrived at 8 PM and did not leave until the last C-47 was airborne.
In My Three Years with Eisenhower Captain Harry C. Butcher says, “We saw hundreds of paratroopers with blackened and grotesque faces, packing up for the big hop and jump. Ike wandered through them, stepping over, packs, guns, and a variety of equipment such as only paratroop people can devise, chinning with this and that one. All were put at ease. He was promised a job after the war by a Texan who said he roped, not dallied, his cows, and at least there was enough to eat in the work. Ike has developed or disclosed an informality and friendliness with troopers that almost amazed me”.
In Crusade in Europe Dwight D. Eisenhower says, “I found the men in fine fettle, many of them joshingly admonishing me that I had no cause for worry, since the 101st was on the job and everything would be taken care of in fine shape. I stayed with them until the last of them were in the air, somewhere about midnight. After a two hour trip back to my own camp, I had only a short time to wait until the first news should come in”.
One of the first D-Day reports was from Air Chief Marshall Leigh-Mallory with news only 29 of 1,250 C-47’s were missing and only four gliders were unaccounted for. That morning Leigh-Mallory sent Ike a message frankly saying it is sometimes difficult to admit that one is wrong, but he had never had a greater pleasure than in doing so on this occasion. He congratulated Ike on the wisdom of his command decision.
I have no time for those who dismiss Dwight D. Eisenhower as merely a political general.
Hoo Ahh! Now that’s some Ink even I’d wear!
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