God Bless each and every one of you

God bless those Soviets who made it possible for our invasion to succeed.

Folks, no need to flame about war or the military in this thread. These men are heroes and deserve every ounce of our gratitude.

Ebenator: Folks, no need to flame about war or the military in this thread.

No flaming from me, merely the acknowledgement that D-Day didn't happen in a vaccuum and that many hands lightened the load.

Thanks, folks.

'cuz everybody speaking German would give me a sore throat in a week.

*stands at attention and salutes*

Let us not forget those who began the Nazi beatdown before June 6, 1944, as well...

ZOMG! The Muslim ppl are right! Americans are the great Satan!!! Honoring the war hungry infidels on 06/06/06...

/got nothing

Thank you, good people. You served your countries with honour.

Dank sei zu unseren Amerikanischen Fuehrers.

/In all seriousness: thanks guys!

Let's not forget those on the home front who bought war bonds, rationed and even sacrificed things like food, fuel, and even cigarettes so our boys on the front lines would have the best America could offer. It didn't win the war for us, but it helped those who did win that war tremendously.

Occams_Electric_Razor

Can't celebrate anything American or patriotic anymore, huh Occam? Yeah many hands lighten the load but that's not why we celebrate D-Day.

This attitude of bashing everything American, I swear...

/salute

My grandfather served during WWII in Europe. I don't know where he was on D-day, but I do know that my grandmother gave my dad some WWII swords he brought back from Germany after the war. Very cool shiat (me being a WWII history buff).

Cordwainer Deathbird
Let's not forget those on the home front who bought war bonds, rationed and even sacrificed things like food, fuel, and even cigarettes so our boys on the front lines would have the best America could offer. It didn't win the war for us, but it helped those who did win that war tremendously.

We gave up our fags so we could have more fags later...

/haha
//sorry, I'm damned to hell now apparently
///I'm just kidding of course
////comedy is so hard for a cracker

let's thank the Grofaz's incompetence for not releasing his tanks to support the defense and drive us back into the sea.

thanks grandpa.

Dirtball: Can't celebrate anything American or patriotic anymore, huh Occam? Yeah many hands lighten the load but that's not why we celebrate D-Day.

We don't celebrate D-Day, we commemorate it.

This attitude of bashing everything American, I swear...

Acknowleding history does not equate to bashing America. If I'm bashing anything, it's our myopic view of history, especially as D-Day wasn't a purely American venture.

You might not like it, but the victory in Europe was an Allied victory and not merely an American one.

This attitude of bashing everything American, I swear...

Actually, D-Day was a multinational effort on the part of all the Allies. British, American, French, Polish and Canadian troops all stormed the beaches at Normandy. Thanks for remembering others' sacrifices.

Dirtball

Occams_Electric_Razor is right about that. The war turned with Soviets repelling the Nazis beginning with Stalingrad. For every Nazi we battled, the Soviets fought 3.

WWII was damn nasty. And I humbly salute all those who fought to bring down tyrany. Because we were way closer to losing than most people are comfortable with admitting.

submitter: Let us not forget those who began the Nazi beatdown on this day in 1944

was it Satan and his cronies? because this is their day.

/hail satan and his cronies.

Dirtball: This attitude of bashing everything American, I swear...

are you satan? daddy, is that you?

Dirtball

And BTW, since when is pointing out the joint sacrifice of our allies American bashing?

Occams_Electric_Razor: You might not like it, but the victory in Europe was an Allied victory and not merely an American one.

Just let it go, he won't understand. Commemorating the people who showed unbelievable bravery (bordering on the insane) on D-Day is a good thing regardless. If he wants to think it was only Americans dying that day, saving poor defenseless Europe by sheer American might, let him. Most people will know (hopefully) that there were many brave people of many nationalities involved in that operation and the entire war. And that other people made sacrifices and showed courage too, doesn't make the Americans involved any less heroic.

lsaylsay:And that other people made sacrifices and showed courage too, doesn't make the Americans involved any less heroic.

Or less appreciated, for that matter.

Huzza! Huzzay! Hurra!

/but no damned huwa, that just too silly.

As a German, I'll be glad to say good riddance! I can't imagine what things would have been like had the Nazis won. And it was terrifyingly close.

Occams_Electric_Razor: God bless those Soviets who made it possible for our invasion to succeed.

I was wondering who was going to mention that first. :-)

El_Swino: British, American, French, Polish and Canadian troops all stormed the beaches at Normandy. Thanks for remembering others' sacrifices.

I was also wondering who would have to make this correction first.


I think I've been on Fark too long. :-(

maudibjr

We should salute the gallentry of the allied troops and incompetence of the german high command.

Not to mention the engineers who put together the P-51 mustang which allowed our side to take the air war to the enemy and dominate the skies. The Army Air Corp had the highest allied casualty rate of any service. Including the marines in the Pacific. Air support allowed us to mop up armor, destroy transportation networks, and more or less cut the enemy off from his supplies and reinforcements.

At that point, you can be the next Robert E. Lee an still lose.

Fnord

I think I've been on Fark too long. :-(

Sadly, I think we made the same corrections last year. And the year before that...

Thank you all. Imagine what life would be like if the Third Reich got 'The Bomb' working. Even if he didn't have a snowball's chance on 6/6/06 of getting it, you all saved countless lives and even more from a life of insane tyrany.

Dancin_In_Anson: Ira told him that the bad part wasn't necessarily the first run in...No one knew what to expect...It was the second run that he had a problem with...He knew what he was taking those boys into...

Wow. Reading that it occured to me how blindingly obvious the statement is, yet how easy it is to miss it. With all the film footage of the invasion, subsequent movies like "Saving Private Ryan", etc. we've become quite used to seeing what went on that day. What you still miss out on is what went on in the minds of the soldiers and sailors before the invasion started.

I stand in awe of the men and women who did what we as a nation will never be able to duplicate again.

Same here. Many thanks to your dad, Ira, and all the others who sacrificed so much.

vernonFL: Who's the broad in the middle?

what great gams she had?

The only World War II movie that my maternal grandfather ever went to see, and he specficially asked me to take him to see it, was Saving Private Ryan. He was quiet the entire movie and the drive home, and when we got back to the house he decided that he finally wanted to tell us what he had seen that day.

He was in the first wave of landing craft, and the fifth in line back from the ramp. Just as they were ready to beach, a mortar blew up near the boat and he ducked down and stood on one knee in the boat. The ramp dropped, he heard the machine guns open up, and he realized that he could see the flashing of the muzzles through the four guys in front of him.

He scrambled over them and into the water and met up with one of the guys he trained with. They started running and the other guy was about thirty feet in front of Pap when a mortar when off and Pap remembered seeing something flying at him.

Some time later Pap came to and was laying flat on his back and pack and couldn't move his left arm. His quick guess was that his collarbone was broken. What troubled him was that his vision was obscured and bloody and it seemed like he was looking through someone's fingers laced over his eyes. He struggled with his one good arm to clear his face and he realized there was something actually on top of him. He pushed it off him and realized that he was actually looking through the ribs of his buddy's torso that had flown back and hit him.

Some time later medics came by and carried Pap back to a wounded muster area and by the afternoon he was back on a hospital ship.

For as bad as Pap's experience was, he made it entirely clear that his was nowhere near the worst of the stories he heard onboard the hospital.

God bless the veterans, the brave men and women who fought and died for their country.

/RIP Uncle Delmar
//517 PIR
///Purple Heart, Silver Star, jump into Normandy, Holland and Germany

maudibjr Can you godwin a WWII thread?

Whoa, man. deep.

/thank you to all who have sacrificed... including granddad

Dancin_In_Anson:

Thanks for posting that.

And thanks, Dad.

Lest we forget...

fark man, celebrate that the war was one day closer to ending. Celebrate that there would be survivors from the Concentration Camps, that the people of Europe would be served a warning to calm the fark down or else the rest of the world was going to get involved and when the rest of the world gets involved, ass whuppings are handed out quite liberally.

I will never forget the feeling of being in Berlin and seeing the pictures of the devestation and thinking that my country somehow played a part in turning that place into mountains of rubble. That something very evil, very base and very terrible could have been unleashed on the world with the rise of Nazism and the continuation of Japan's fight for cultural dominance.

To those who gave their lives, I hope they rest in peace.
To those who survived, I hope they have found peace and love at home.


That Occams would mention the Russians without mentioning any of the countries which actually took part in the D-Day invasion shows he's far more interested in being a contrarian than sincerely thankful or reflective...

/Sit down, Waldo.

Thank you.

Thanks for kicking the Nazis out of Western Europe and keeping the Soviets out of there too.