[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Bless you, Bert. I doubt it. We’re all supposed to feel stupid if we only speak English, the most important language on earth. And it takse a lifetime to master English, so they can go take their bilingual snoodiness and stick it where the sun don’t shine.

I personally think that the most recent Pearl Harbor does a fine job — especially in certain parts — of empahasizing the need for military preparedness, the vulnerability of static defense [such as conserving fuel by keeping so many ships statically placed], the danger of being too trustful, etc.

And the start of Saving Private Ryan — that beach scene shows how risky and dangerous it is to let someone like Hitler get too powerful.

[bert]

yes, yes, you are right, but this was a Clint movie!!

and, I have heard there is such an English dubbed version

[archy]

And the start of Saving Private Ryan - that beach scene shows how risky and dangerous it is to let someone like Hitler get too powerful.

The one does not lead to the other. You need to contrast that fictional propagandist's account of Omaha Beach with the far less costly events at Utah Beach, where, though a blunder landed the initial wave of troops other than where it was planned they should land, where they did come ashore was not where the Germans were as ready for them. And at Utah, the assault boat coxswains did not launch the DD amphibious tanks so far out from the beach that most were swamped and sunk before hitting the beach; in fact some accounts record that the landing craft carrying the 70th Armor's engineer tanks with bulldozer blades- not the amphibious DDs- came right on to the beach, dropped their ramps, and away the 70th's happy tankers went, rolling up MG and mortar positions with the blades and pouring direct fire from their main guns directly into concrete bunkers from 75 feet and less.

And at Utah there were two other real heroes: the Captains of the Navy destroyers tasked with naval gunfire support of the landing were unfazed by the landing taking place other than where planned, turned their bows toward the gunfire and they too let fly with amazingly accurate direct fire into the German positions until they had nothing left at which to shoot, elevated their guns and continued as indirect fire artillery directed by fire control parties that hitched a ride ashore in the 70th's tanks. At Omaha, a *prudent* Navy commander kept his ships well back from the beach and out of range of return enemy fire, lest the nice paint on his ships get scorched. But if those destroyer captains at Utah had wheels on their gunships, I doubt they'd have stopped until they got to Berlin.

Ooops, I forgot. We stopped our drive on Berlin so the Russians could take it. Yes, the politicians were playing their games with the war even then. But that Brigadeer General who saved the day at Utah by deciding to reinforce the *wrong* initial landing site saved a lot of lives that day, not too awfully surprising considering that actions of that sort kind of ran in his family. And that was how Theodore Roosevelt, Junior earned his medal of Honor. A month later, he was dead.

Don't worry about *powerful* men like Hitler. Just let's find some good men like TR, Junior who can ruin all their carefully-laid plans.