D-Day plus 63 years

I picked up the HD DVD player for my 360 almost exclusively to be able to get the Planet Earth HD DVDs. I didn't realize that the DVDs would cost almost as much as the player!

I need to get the BoB set soon as well.

 

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/planet-earth/planet-earth.html

 

Just don't make the mistake of Googling "Operation Dingleberry."

Seriously,
One of my goals is to visit Normandy. The thought of the invasion and the heroism and bravery makes me teary. I always cry at the end of Saving Private Ryan when he visits the graves. ALWAYS.

Never forget.

 

It's been almost two years since my grandfather passed, and one of the things I admire about him the most is his involvment on D-Day. I have all the stuff he brought back with him from the war, including the two German helmets he picked up on the beach -- one of which has a bullet hole through the middle of it. That one seemed to bring the whole thing home for me. Someone wearing that helmet almost certainly died. It still gives me chills.

To this day I don't know how my grandfather survived. He wasn't even supposed to be in the first wave on Omaha Beach -- he was an MP who was supposed to go in after it was secured to secure POWs and help direct troops who were landing. Instead, due to a snafu, his boat was one of the earliest ones to go in -- or would have been, had it not been hit by a shell on the way in. He had to jump out and wade to shore.

One of my most valued possessions is the journal he kept of his time in WWII. He didn't keep it while he was fighting, but wrote it down years later for me. Otherwise I don't think he ever would have talked about it. Like most of his peers, he seemed to regard the whole experience as nothing special.

I always think about him on his birthday and on the day he died, but for some reason June 6 has always been the date that resonates the most.

 

Jim, God bless your grandfather and his buddies.
I stand in awe of their heroics.

 

I've been to Normandy. I had the good fortune and blessing to be a part of the 50th anniversary events associated with it, serving on board the USS George Washington at the time. The emotions, the scene, the words from the veterans were chilling and memorable.

 

With sincere gratitude, thank you to all who served on that day and others. Evil's reference to Saving Private Ryan made me remember one of the important things I took away from that movie. It was one line, just a few words, and this day in history always reminds me.

"Earn this."

It's a line between Hanks' character and Damon's, and in the grand scheme a movie line is has almost no value, but I see it as a metaphor for the invasion and the war in its entirety. Earn this, earn what these brave men and women fought for. Earn what they gave us.

 

Normandy is an indescribable experience.

 

I hope I'm assigned to Germany so I can take advantage of some of that stuff. I'd love to walk up that beach. I'm sure it's been done time and again, but I'd love to stand on one of those beaches and take notes and photos for a battle analysis.

 

This is classic postmodern revisionism. The Alabamians would never have been able to hold that hill had they taken it.

 

Fascinating, thanks for this thread.
My dad, now 90, was in the troops that followed Patton through France and into Germany, securing the small towns as Patton made his way to Berlin. My dad was a hero to his officers because he found a supply of gas hidden in one town, and a hero to his fellow soldiers because he found a cache of cognac hidden in a basement in another town. He came back to the U.S. on the Queen Mary.
Again, thanks for this thread.

 

Listening to the XM program, it's striking how much more eloquent people -- both journalists and politicians -- were 63 years ago.