D-Day 6 Jun 44 - 69 years ago...

[ChuckS]

Please remember... http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/no.php

[rhgunguy]

My great-uncle's ride into France was a wooden glider. In almost 30 years he never said a word about it. I found out at his funeral. I'll have to hoist an Old Milwaukee tonight.

[Jaxshooter]

The unfortunate thing is no young people know anything about this because it is not taught in schools any longer. Neither is Korea or Viet Nam. It is no wonder history repeats itself.

[ChuckS]

My great-uncle's ride into France was a wooden glider. In almost 30 years he never said a word about it. I found out at his funeral. I'll have to hoist an Old Milwaukee tonight.

I had a chance to tour Normandy a few years ago, One of the places we stopped was at the Pegasus Bridge. The night glider landing there was amazing since I don't think most people would want to land a power plane there, in the daytime! Just amazing..

[Alan550]

I live in Bedford, VA where the National D-Day Memorial is located, and went to school with the children of the survivors. We got the Memorial because our little town & county lost more on a per-capita basis than any other location in the US. As the OP said, they never talked about it and that's sad for the nation as a whole. They are dying off now at a prodigious rate and since the Memorial went up during the Bush-43 administration, some have opened up about what happened that day in June 69 years ago. There is even a book entitled "The Bedford Boys" that was written about our guys.

I am lucky enough to the the Chief Range Officer in our local shooting club and our range is located on the same site where the "Bedford Boys" practiced with their rifles before shipping off to England for that fateful day To us, it is hallowed ground!

We Remember!

Alan~^~

[Miranda]

I have tried to get a few veterans to talk.

most seem to think it was horrific and were not proud of what they did.

... cept one former German tank crewman. He described what he did during the war.

I have to tell you I decided he was crazy, or a German tanker, there is a fine line.

Mostly he seemed glad to be among the living.

With the others, the pride seemed to come from knowing that they had to serve and the cause was just.

one man said something like this.

I would like you to know how un-believable and horrible it was.

If I were to tell you anything else, you might think war was anything except that.

take my word for it, avoid it if you can.

The funny thing is that from two very different men, they said much the same thing.

miranda

[DCMJ]

My dad crewed on the transport that carried Hemingway, then a correspondent for Collier's Magazine, to Omaha beach on AP-67, Dorothea L Dix, AKA "Dirty Dottie". The ship and one of his crewmates, Richard "Highpockets" Daschle, is mentioned in Stephen Ambrose's novel "D-Day".

I can't imagine the horror he worked around in the days following the invasion, he was pressed into service landing trucks and equipment after the beach was won.

[outerlimits]

my step-dad was on omaha on D1. we talked at length. took him to see private ryan...cried like a baby.

[ranger]

My dad is a WW2 vet - after D-Day but in the Huertegen Forest. He never spoke about it. When I came home from my combat tour in Iraq, he spoke about his time in WW2 one night and then went back to his silence. His generation just does not talk about it.

I watched Saving Private Ryan once in a movie theater in Savannah full of Army soldiers from Hunter AAF and FT Stewart. Never been to a movie where the audience was so quiet at the end - almost in awe or reverent. I have the DVD but I just cannot watch that movie - best movie ever - just cannot watch the loss of life.

[Ranger6]

My uncle was Ernest Roberts who parachuted behind Normandy the evening prior to D-day. During that chaotic combat period he was reported "missing - presumed lost" while defending his unit against a large German force. It was not until April 1945 that they discovered that he had been wounded and taken prisoner. I was born that month and named after him.

My aunt gave me some of his military items shortly before she died. Included was his jump wings with star (indicating a combat jump) and the Distinguished Service Cross medal.

Jim Ernest Roberts

LTC, U.S. Army (Ret)

[Neomet]

My dad never talked about the war until I was well into my 30s and then initially just funny stories about the guys he served with. Only thing was that after I guess around 9 months or so it dawned on me that every story ended with ..."and he died when...". It was just one of the spookiest things ever. A decade or so later I was talking to his brother who served in the Pacific who told me that of all the men dad had shipped out with he was the last one to finally leave the front line when he was injured north of Rome. Everyone else had either died or been injured so badly they could not get back to the front.

To this day whenever I think I am facing hard times or think I have done something worth bragging about I remember how my dad never once complained about what he endured or bragged about what he accomplished and am reminded of how real men should behave.

Edited June 7, 2013 by Neomet