Full Day D-Day Broadcasts
D Day - Broadcast Part 1 - 0250 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxBO-YnxwNM
D Day - Broadcast Part 2 - 0700 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf6Iq0DnXbA
D Day - Broadcast Part 3 - 1100 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HbyG1QAc6U
D Day - Broadcast Part 4 - 1500 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WiOQmlBbSY
D Day - Broadcast Part 5 - 1900 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQxcTnHJzg0
D Day - Broadcast Part 6 - 2300 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoClWCMiM0c
The Longest Day ! Jean has a long mustache
I have an uncle who was there, first wave at Omaha beach, combat engineer. Listening to him talk about it is powerful, you can see him reliving it and well up in tears when he talks about buddies he watched die. Like in Saving Private Ryan he had three guys in his out fit get hit with mortar or artillery round. One second they were there and the next second, just gone. His landing craft passed by the USS Texas battleship as she cut loose with a massive broadside against the Krauts.
He went on to fight in the Hurtgen Forrest where he got frost bite and sent to the Ardennnes, the quite sector to recuperate and participate in the Battle of the Bulge. He ended up in Czechoslovakia/Austria area by wars end. He is in his 90’s now and in failing health.
It was cold in October of 1962 when I went to the drive-in with my veteran father to see the Longest Day. I believe it was the first time I saw him cry. That and the movie made a big mark on me.
Of all the places I want to go before I die Normandy is the highest on my list. I know it will be hard but that is foolish and self-absorbed of me compared to what the men of that day, the days before and the days after suffered.
I don’t believe I can ever be dried of tears to remember what these men endured and accomplished.
It is impossible to walk a battle ground and not feel humbled below the tops of my shoes. The intensity of the rage, brutality, horror, honor and love infuse the places and makes all other human endeavor and trial shrink to insignificance in these places where scores of young men meet their own judgement day.
“Our promise is that no matter how many years pass, the world will never forget their sacrifices,” Schmidt said. “We as a nation are committed to this memory.”
No, he is wrong, the world will forget. They are forgetting now. We still have a few people of that generation and people only one generation removed from them but when they are gone the memory will be very dim. It is getting dim now. That is just the way things, mankind goes. We still remember the 300 Spartains at Thermopyle but probably none memoriaize their sacrifice.
I wonder how many centuries we will maintain the hallowed grounds of the dead before someones find a more compelling use for that land?