doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com june 6 1944

Nothing in particular. Just a way of marking a particular day.

On one of the most memorable days in U S History on which virtually every President since the end of WW III has noted the occasion in a solemn and dignified way what do you suppose the current occupant of the White House is doing?
Jim

From the news services:

It�s D-Day and President Obama is hitting the beaches � of sunny California!

Instead of scheduling a brief event to mark the 68th anniversary of America�s brutal landing on the shores of Normandy, Obama is already on his way to San Francisco, where he will hold two fundraisers before moving on to Beverly Hills to stage two more.

Obama failed to mark D-Day with either a speech or a written proclamation both last year or the year before. He did give a speech in 2009, the 65th anniversary of the event.

First Lady Michelle Obama, who has made much of her �Joining Forces� campaign to support military families, also has nothing planned for D-Day. She�ll be in New York City for a fundraiser and then in Philadelphia to meet with campaign volunteers.

'Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages what feats he that day'. One of Bill's; Shakespere that is. Lagopus.....

You made me check, Dave. Wikipedia seems to say the friendly fire by British cruiser on beach as ordered by Eisenhower was on the day before the E-boats showed up and riddled a line-astern convoy in Lyme Bay. I was pleased that I remembered the number at Slapton Sands---946.

I'm sort of ambivalent, however, on a notion or obligation or plain good citizenship of remembering the days of battles. I'm reminded of a particularly nasty engagement in the mountains of Italy between Germans and Canadians where there were truces to clear wounded, literally no hatred, civil.

Which made it all the more obscene. I'm attending a little ceremony in Holland July 2 on the 70th anniversary of where my father's bomber was shot down with the loss of his crew; he parachuted to three years as a POW. It's enough for me to reflect on the sacrifices of all wars---and the waste, the waste.

No one, at least that I know of, "celebrates" D Day. As I stated above it is perceived as a solemn occasion and a chance to reflect upon the past and to honor the many that never made it off the beaches.
This was a major sacrifice and I hate to think of what would have happened if the invasion had failed.
However it galls me that the occupier of the White House can't take some time out of his busy re-election schedule to pay homage to those who gave so much.

Statement today from Mitt Romney:

"Thank you to those who stormed the beaches, took the cliffs and freed a continent. We should never forget #DDay"

Jim

Concur wholeheartedly with you, King. I knew I had to get out of the Army - which I had gone into thinking would be my career - when I recognized that the Soviets and Germans on the other side of the Inter-German Border fence were different from me only in minor things. They wore different uniforms and spoke different languages but that was pretty much the only difference. We were all obligated to follow the orders, and were therefore mere pawns, of politicians who'd cause wars for reasons we would neither know about nor have any influence over.

This is not - repeat, not - to cast any sort of equivalency over different regimes that have existed. There is no reasonable reason to question that the system we live under here, for all its flaws, is far better in many, many ways, than those other systems. Rather, from the perspective of the common soldier, the relative merits of political systems have little importance. You're more concerned about your buddies and men, a chance at a hot meal or a fresh pair of socks, and the constant threat of death - quick or not - landing on you. The pols, well, they're safely ensconced far to the rear.

Both Obama and Romney "tweeted" comments regarding D-Day, including the Romney quote above. http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/231277-obama-tweets-for-d-day

You would have grieved the death as much as I last week of Paul Fussell, 88. I had the pleasure of meeting and discussing the thinking of this American citizen-soldier and gentleman about 10 years ago.

He was of a great generation, and I believe the technological revolution upon us will produce an equivalent revolution of social media that will somehow over time make up for the loss of his integrity and bravery.

Greg, I was pleased you remembered the Devil's Brigade in Rome. My wife and I just returned from the battlegrounds of the Special Forces on the mountains shouldering the Mignano Gap and Hill 720. 1SSF had passed through Rome when the 88th got its deserved tumultuous welcome. My wife, a painter, is completing 10 large paintings of the Liri Valley campaign, and I a biography of a soldier who was there and won the DSO on the Gothic Line, Canada's most significant military victory since Vimy Ridge in First World War.

No, but you certainly hear about the anniversaries of the atomic bombs. Why? Because that still has a political purpose.