My great grandfathers also. Met one grandfather who told me about those bad times My great grandfathers were both killed in action in the second world war. I have studied both world wars - just because they interest me - and I think it was your American General John J. Pershing who in 1918 demanded allied forces should press on to Berlin rather than the actual armistice which was eventually declared - leaving Germany relatively unscathed. He also stated that without pressing on into Berlin: "Well be back out here again within 20 years to do it all once more." How damned true was that statement.
my great uncle was here. he was a BUD...a SEAL before there were SEALs. his job was to dive and disable underwater bombs. he said all he had was his mask, a pair of shorts and a knife. he was shot 5 times in 5 days and lived to tell us the tale...he was a BAD ASS.
littlemissbitch ~ professional face ripper offer, at your service..
My grandfather's older brothers were in this, with one landing on D-Day at Utah Beach. He went through to the end of the war without a physical scratch. He didn't take it to well mentally though (PTSD) and became a heavy drinker. He died in 1954 in a car accident. Another was a 'replacement' in the 3rd Army in France not long after D-Day. He was wounded in the drive to relieve Bastonge in the Battle of the Bulge and suffered from frostbite. Another was a side-gunner in a B-24 based in Italy. He was wounded by flak shrapnel and sent home in 1944. My grandfather, the youngest brother, was too young to join the army, but did in 1948. He fought in Korea. My other grandfather was in the Navy on a sub-chaser destroyer in the Pacific.
As this debacle has been so well documented (I was 2 at the time). I still find it hard to find any justification for wars since. War is the ultimate childishness - we stop kids hitting each other in the playground at school and then expect them to reconcile this contradiction and even extend the hypocrisy further by expecting them to actually fight in the damn things when they are just out of their teens even though they are not always eligible to be part of the decision making process. I can't accept the good guy bad guy thing either as that is always a matter of historical convenience as atrocities are committed by all sides.
both my grandfathers faught in the war. one was an RAF groundcrew (royal air force) and the other was a dessert rat (Commando)
they were not at normandy but both remember it.
they both past away in the past few years. miss them. may they rest in peace.
WWII was no doubt the good guys vs, the bad guys. Unless you are okay with the mass extermination of races of people and planetary domination by racist empirical dictatorships.
One of my grandfathers was a US Army Intelligence officer and his job was mostly to interrogate German prisoners.
My other grandfather was just a grunt private as he calls it. He fought in The Battle of the Bulge. After the war he went to college on the GI Bill.
If ever there was a battle against pure evil, World War II was that battle. We owe our liberty to the men that stood between us and two agressive nations that wanted to conquer the world, exterminating entire people groups in the process. Read "The Rape of Naking" to see the evils of the Japanese Empire. Read about the Holocaust and you will catch just a glimpse of the horrors that we fought to stop.
Both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were racist empires bent on world conquest, and they nearly prevailed. The world would be a dark, evil place if Britain had not fought on against all odds, and if the United States had not supplied Russia with the means to defend herself, and had the U.S. not offered its best and brightest men to bring an end to this aggression and totalitarian nightmear.
D Day ought long to be remembered as a heroic battle to end enslavement and to liberate Europe from the tyranny of an evil goverment bent on world conquest. It was one of our shining moments, and I give thanks to all that fought for our freedom -- and I honor the memory of those that gave their last full measure to preserve our liberty.
Sarcastic Coffee Aficionado
Excellent post, Buz .... sometimes the younger generation forgets (because some don't even know) about the sacrifices men and women made during WWII. My father was a Paratrooper for the British. (what that means, I never really found out ... something about assisting in dropping medical stuff and other things ...)
When I watched the opening 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" .... my god, I was almost physically sick at what those men endured and died for. And, there are other great movies that help to show us what happened and perhaps, show us how fortunate we now are.
I cannot express well-enough, my gratitude. And @ TJRouge ... your post was fabulously written.
PA
What was the question, Jack42?
In the Second World War, that began in 1939, over two years before America finally contributed its important weight, a great evil crossed a line that caused fine men and women in most of the free countries of the world to make any sacrifice necessary to stop it and crush the life from it. That evil took the people of Mozart and Beethoven and Goethe and used real and perceived injustices stemming from the previous war, added in a mysticism, ethnic nationalism and xenophobia that appealed to the German and the wider Germanic nation and caught those people up in its truly evil pursuits. Other than Stalin's Soviet evil, none of the western powers that allied themselves against Hitler or the Japanese hoped for war or wanted war. Thank God our fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers had the fortitude to risk it all and in many cases give their all. They took the fight to them to make sure we would have a world worth living in.
To Buz... Amen. Some fights have to be fought. Lest we forget...
Good post Buz. I had an uncle who was stationed in England. several friends I knew were in both theaters of the war
“I'm not one of those complicated, mixed-up cats. I'm not looking for the secret to life.... I just go on from day to day, taking what comes.”~Frank Sinatra~
Here in NZ, as the older generations have faded out , individual campaigns such as D-Day and the battle of Normandy, the Italian campaign. so have remembrance celebrations for them
faded away. Individual units, who participated in these battles, may ahve a reunion but, once again, age is against them. We have our major remembrance day on 25th April, called
ANZAC Day. This now encompasses all military actions in which NZ, as a country, has participated in, from the Boer War to the current Afghanistani troubles. ANZAC stands for Australian and
New Zealand Army Corps - we do not do much without Australia, though Australia has participated in some things we have not i.e 2nd Gulf War.
The main thing I mean by this is that no matter what your colour, creed or faith somewnere along the line a serviceman/woman has gone into bat for you and your beliefs, and, fortunately
for you has prevailed. Learn the lessons from history and thank those people who paid the ultimate sacrifice. I did 20 years in the NZ Army and am proud of it
So I salute all those brave females who endure the pain so that we can enjoy the freedom of ogling delicious female forms clad in scanty and arousing whisps of cloth secure in the knowledge that we are safe to pursue them in a world free of despotic underwear manufacturers.