Did they plan D-Day for a moonlit night? I once researched the night they dropped the first atomic bomb. It was as close to a moonless night as it’s possible to get.
Ed Shames was a member of Easy Company, 501st (Band of Brothers). There can’t be too many of them left.
Men will bear any burden, suffer any hardship, and make any sacrifice if they know their cause is valuable and they are supported by their leaders and the nation.
A full evening of reading to remember.
From Reagan’s 40th Anniversary D-Day speech on June 6, 1984
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/reagan-d-day.htm
>>>The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought — or felt in their hearts, though they couldn’t know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.
Something else helped the men of D-day: their rockhard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we’re about to do. Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: ``I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.’’<<<<
No, Mike, he was a man. And if you can't get that basic thing right, nothing else you say is worth anything.
Thanks for the post. Some memories remain until the grave.
He didn't say much about it. A boat next to his was 'blown out of the water'. A German round hit his boat in the little office. Luckily, he wasn't in there at the time. His jacket, draped across the back of his chair, was shredded, and several cartons of cigarettes in the locker were 'turned to snuff'.
PFL