Is anybody on this board old enough to have been there?

Had a parent who was there?

Parent: step-father who raised me. He rarely talked about it and, when he did, the memories he recounted were horrific.

My father-in-law flew B-24s in the Pacific. Hours and hours of long, boring flights punctuated by seconds and minutes of sheer terror during aerial attacks at the bombing site.

He never talked about it either even though we share a love of flying and aviation to this day.

I think "Saving Private Ryan" outed a lot of bottled-up feelings.

And I think that is a good thing.

Thank you, Steven Spielberg

I am old enough to remember D-Day, June 6. 1944. I have not been a fan of movies about the war. Living through the real thing sort of dampens any desire to relive those events.

WW2 probably had a huge impact on my maturing from childhood to adulthood.......fast track. The war occurred during all my years of high school.....clothes rationings, especially shoes, gasoline rationing, sugar, coffee, butter, tires....... all rationed. At the time I turned sixteen and my mother had been working in a war plant, they were so desperate for workers that I wound up working there for two summers, testing aircraft launched rockets. Very sobering at a young age to work in a place churning out munitions that were being dumped on the human race in the countries that had been subjugated by leaders that were drunk for power and had really no concern for human life.

One brother had been drafted, my oldest one, direct from high school. I recall his return just a month before I left for college. He was in the army's 66th Signal Corps, and had witnessed many brutal and atrocious events. My youngest brother also went into the army and was in Germany early in the occupation.

History now,,,,,,,funny feeling about the sense that a couple of generations since the actuality,it is really a barely mentioned event.........have heard no reference to it today and have the telly on since 4am.

That experience also left me with a definite antipathy to the word "HOMELAND" - cannot figure why anyone would use this label that understands that it is as reprehensible as the "N" word for our black race brothers and sisters. In the war years there were community organizations under the "Civil Defense" system, rules for blackouts, campaigns against other possible dangers etc.- curfews and the sort.

The U.S. had a very different reputation and world respect back then, I mourn the loss of all that since the current regime has been in power.




lenal

UTAH, OMAHA, GOLD, JUNO, SWORD
...just a day at the beach(s). The Longest Day.

Six divisions were to land on the first day; three U.S., two British and one Canadian.

Total Allied casualties on D-Day are estimated at 10,000, including 2500 dead. British casualties on D-Day have been estimated at approximately 2700. The Canadians lost 946 casualties. The US forces lost 6603 men. Note that the casualty figures for smaller units do not always add up to equal these overall figures exactly, however (this simply reflects the problems of obtaining accurate casualty statistics).

Kinda brings into focus the losses in Grant's drive to Richmond...
more than 61,000 federals and probably 40,000+ Confederates.
7,000 Union troops were killed in three hours at Cold Harbor ,
the largest rate of U.S. troop deaths in history, while a few hundred
Confederates died defending a fortified position from repeated charges.

http://www.civilwarhome.com/casualties.htm
(and several accounts in books I've read)

However, the 3,503 coalition deaths in Iraq
touch familes the same way...and they weren't
in defense of homes, for independence, preserving
the Union or even partially to free slaves...

Peace y'all.

Nope, Dad was just on convoy duty at the time, but he'd already gotten the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and PUC for a suicide mission, having just turned 19 he'd learned that enough was enough.

Thanks for the posts.

War is still hell.