I was listening to the letters yesterday during the Prairie Home Companion, and one of them was a son thanking his father, who stormed Omaha Beach in the second wave and who is still alive and kicking today. I guess after that, the last 65 years have been gravy for that hero.
Think of the fallen while you eat your burger.
The Grand Panjandrum
I’m taking my two first graders up to the village green a little later to watch the parade. We are then going to hike along the stream that runs through our property and find a nice spot to have lunch and spend the day together.
mellowjohn
REMEMBER
If you are able,
save a place for them
inside of you. And
save one backward glance
when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say that you loved them,
though you may not have always.
Take what they have left,
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it your own.
And in a time
when men decide and feel safe
to call war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.
Major Michael Davis O’Donnell, helicopter pilot
1 January 1970, Dak To, Vietnam
KIA, March 24, 1970
Bill E Pilgrim
I was thinking a few days ago, with no particular connection to memorial day, how I was down on Omaha Beach playing in the sand with my girlfriend a couple of years ago, eventually almost forgetting where we were, until at one point a small plane came droning past way up over the cliffs and for a second you could almost imagine what it was like. Almost.
R-Jud
This guy was my great-uncle. He also stormed the beach, and after he came home, he went back to high school, much to the relief of local politicians who feared for their jobs. Imagine sitting through algebra class after that?
I’m going to call my grandmother today. She was a nurse with the WAC, and was on a transport to Okinawa when Truman decided to drop the bomb instead. She got confined to quarters for fraternization and wound up treating Japanese POWs in Hawaii. My grandfather was at Fort Dix the entire war, interpreting for Italian POWs. Grandma outranked him.
smiley
I was thinking of my all-time favorite war movies the other day, for some reason. Saving Private Ryan isn’t one of them. Without question, however, the D-Day sequence at the beginning is the most realistic portrayal of war that I’ve ever seen (a pretty common sentiment, I know). Added: what I meant to say was that those guys were truly heroic. I can’t imagine running into a barrage of machine gun fire.
Many people rank The Longest Day as the greatest war movie. For me, however, my favorites are, in no particular order:
Lawrence of Arabia
Bridge on the River Kwai
Apocalypse Now
Full Metal Jacket
Dr. Strangelove
R-Jud
@smiley:
My great-uncle said they got the sounds just right. It seemed to trigger a lot of memories for him; he had a really hard time sleeping after he had seen it.
smiley
@R-Jud: Your great uncle was a truly impressive man.
mellowjohn
smiley @ #5:
how about “a bridge too far”?
R-Jud
@smiley: Yep. What is really impressive is that there were and are thousands of others like him. For years I have kept a picture of him taken the day after his ordeal in Belgium– it’s the ultimate thousand-yard stare– taped to my desk. Underneath it I have written “STOP WHINING”. I think he would like that.
mellowjohn
“84 charlie mopic” was pretty good, too.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
Great war movie: Breaker Morant
The Grand Panjandrum
If you go to Vermont Public Radio you can listen to a live stream of a previously recorded interview with Andrew Bacevich. Good stuff as you would expect.
Montysano
Here’s a shout-out to my Dad, who left us in January. He spent the war as part of Air Transport Command, stationed in the remote Assam Valley of India, “flying the hump” over the Himalayas to China.
It must have been quite the adventure for a dirt-poor kid from rural Indiana. We have this incredible photo of him, sitting on an MP’s Harley (“liberated” from a holding yard after MPs switched to Jeeps), smoking a cigar and holding a Thompson gun, a monkey on his shoulder, w/tea fields and native women in the background. Dad, a lifelong Democrat, never forgot what the New Deal and the GI Bill did for him.
Svensker
@mellowjohn:
What a beautiful poem.
I will say this for Memorial Day: War Is Not the Answer
Svensker
@mellowjohn:
That movie should have been titled A Reel Too Long.
Dennis-SGMM
My late father was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Utah on December 7th, 1941. He made it to shore because he was a good Catholic and had awakened early to go to Mass. He fought on through the Pacific campaigns, then Korea and the then nascent war in Vietnam. I served in Vietnam and was a member of the last American outfit to leave the Mekong Delta. My beloved, autistic son has been expressing interest in joining the USMC. I told him that our family has done enough.
That said, thank you to everyone who has served and those who serve now. Whether you’ve been shot at or not you answered the call and you put your ass on the line.
I couldn’t finish “Saving Private Ryan” because they got the sound of incoming rounds exactly right. You do not, ever, want to hear that.
weezer
@mellowjohn
thanks for “Remember”
I was a junior in high school when that was written. It’s strange when people in their 40’s ask you what things were like then – the draft etc. Seems like on the Friday evening news the networks would announce the US, NVA and South Vietnamese body counts. The US casualties were unreal, often 200-300 per week.
Jim Wilson
I had the privilege — and it was indeed a privilege — a couple of years ago to record and transcribe the wartime experiences of two men who participated in the D-Day assault at Normandy. They both returned to lives as “ordinary citizens,” neither of them asking for any special favors. One has since passed away, the other is in poor health. But their stories will be remembered.
For anyone interested in doing this, go to:
http://www.loc.gov/vets/
The project covers oral histories from all veterans, not just those from WWII. But the WWII vets are the most urgent, since they’re dying off. It’s sometimes difficult to get them to open up, but the potential results are both rewarding and humbling.
smiley
@mellowjohn: Actually, I noticed that was on TCM yesterday. I caught the very end of it. Otherwise, I don’t remember ever watching it. For those interested, I see that Sargent York is on TCM tonight at 8:00. I’ve never seen that one either.
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: I think I remember seeing that when it first came out. I don’t remember it though.
I’m not an expert on war movies. I actually don’t like them all that much. I think I starting thinking of those I enjoyed after seeing all the war movies that were airing this weekend.
tavella
The oldest of my uncles was a Ranger Pathfinder. He parachuted into Normandy hours before the invasion to set up landing zones for the others. He was only 17, having lied about his age to sign up.
He doesn’t talk about it much, but I am grateful to him.
R-Jud
@Dennis-SGMM:
There are other ways to serve one’s country. I wouldn’t’ve passed muster for the Army because I’m blind in one eye, but I found my own way to try and give back. There are a lot of service programs that might be appropriate outlets for your son, depending on his interests and abilities, etc.
And thank you for your service.
Jackie
My Dad spent WW 2 in the Phillipines. He doesn’t talk about it much except for a few funny stories. A few years ago there were alot of stories of vets going back to Normandy and I asked him if he would like to go back to see how different things were. He looked at me like I had lost my mind. I’ll be calling him later today to thank him for his service. The GI bill gave him a trade and a chance to own a home. The VA today helps with his prescriptions.
Thanks to all of you who served.
Let us hold our elected officials feet to the fire. Our VA system is stressed way past it’s capacity. If there is one issue we ought to be able to unite the country behind it’s taking care of our veterans. I don’t want to hear about the budgets constraints.
J.D. Rhoades
@Svensker: Beat me to it. Connery’s pretty good in it, as is Redford, but it does drag a bit.
smiley
@R-Jud: I couldn’t serve in the military either because I had/have juvenile diabetes. I have always been amused, however, that my lottery number was 007.
John Cole
@Jackie: I think it is a crying shame we subject our veterans to socialized medicine.
demkat620
My grandpa served in the New Hebrides in WWII. He repaired PT boats as a machinist mate. He liked to tell us he worked on JFK’s boat.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@smiley: Breaker Morant is more of a courtroom drama than a war movie. It is based on real events during the Boer War. It is about the court marshall of three Australian soldiers by the British for killing Boer POWs. Great story told between the courtroom and flashbacks to the conflict during the testimony. Well acted.
The Moar You Know
My grandfather – the last one of my grandparents who is still alive, by the way – was at Omaha. The local TV station had interviewed him when Saving Private Ryan came out.
I almost left the theater during the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan. I couldn’t imagine actually going through such a thing.
His comment was along the lines of “they did a pretty good job with that, but in reality it was much worse”.
He also said that you don’t get through that because you are tough, you get through it because you have no other options.
Thanks grandpa. Thanks also to my dad who flew recon over Vietnam and Laos in those broken-down Connies. You both don’t think you are tough or did anything special. You are both wrong.
freelancer
Last night I watched “The Conscientious Objector“, the story of Desmond Doss. He’s a devout seventh day Adventist who served as a medic in the Pacific. He refused to carry a weapon for religious reasons. On Okinawa, over the span of 12 hours, he saved the lives of 75 men, as he dragged them away from two Japanese machine gun positions and lowered them to safety. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor.
There’s a lot of God talk in the film, even from the Narrator (which especially bugged the crap out of me), but given the circumstances, I can understand how Doss and the men he saved feel like “miraculous” would be the only word appropriate for describing his actions. Good movie.
Bill H
Band of Brothers. I just ordered the set from Amazon.
My father was a Army medical officer; USAAF Flight Surgeon. Once the Invasion happened Army medics were in short supply and he worked with ground forces. Rode an LST on D-Day to bring wounded back from the beach and made several trips. Later he rode a glider into the Battle of the Bulge and used the same glider to fly wounded out. He stayed in the Air Force when it separated and is now resting in peace at Arlington.
srv
What FDChief said.
Screamin' Demon
My old man died in February. He was 84. He was drafted in March 1945, and graduated jump school at Fort Bragg three weeks after the war ended. He served in the Army of Occupation in Japan with the 11th Airborne Division. When asked what he did over there, he’d just say, “Got drunk mostly.” He went to Nagasaki and saw the aftermath of the bombing. He wouldn’t talk about it, except to say, “You wouldn’t have believed it. There was almost nothing left.” Before he was drafted, he had briefly worked at Hanford during the construction of the B, D and F reactors. Just like everyone else there, he had no idea what he was helping to build, and didn’t know until after the war that what was manufactured at Hanford destroyed Nagasaki. He was discharged from the AUS in November of ’45, joined the regular Army the next day and served another year before being discharged again at “the convenience of the government.” The Army was downsizing, and didn’t need him anymore. He hitchhiked from Camp Beale in California back to Washington state. He never had to wait long for a ride. Back then, anyone in uniform was a hero, regardless of what they’d done.
No heroic war stories. My old man was just a guy who served and was honest about what he did. He didn’t think it was much, but he served honorably, and had nothing but good things to say about the United States Army.
My wife and I toured Hanford last year, and spent 90 minutes at B Reactor. Regardless of one’s opinion about whether or not the atomic bombs were necessary, B is an impressive place. I stood in awe before the massive reactor face and thought about the fact that I might not be here today if it hadn’t been built. My old man would almost certainly have taken part in an invasion of Japan, and might have been killed.
Just Some Fuckhead
My dad was in the USN, helicopter gunner in Vietnam, shrapneled a coupla times. My wife’s father was in the army, fought in WWII in the Battle of the Bulge, where his feet froze. He passed away in 2007. It saddens me that we’re losing a generation who can warn us from the horrors of war. My wife’s father was a raging evangelical Republican but he abhorred war and guns.
Dennis-SGMM
Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom —
A field where a thousand corpses lie.
Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
-Stephen Crane
Dennis-SGMM
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Was your dad with HAL-3? They were one of the outfits that supported us boat guys in the Delta. If he was there anytime in 71-72 I probably partied with him.
Edit: God, I’m old.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Dennis-SGMM: I’ll find out today Dennis. He should be arriving soon.
asiangrrlMN
@Just Some Fuckhead: Good to see you, JSF. I’ve missed you.
Thank you all who have served our country. There aren’t enough words to express my gratitude.
I went to Japan as part of a semester abroad in college, and I visited the Peace Park and memorial museum in Hiroshima. It was pretty sobering. I’ve been to the Vietnam Wall in DC, and the Holocaust Memorial in Boston. Everyone has reminded me of all the tremendous loss of lives the world has suffered through war.
Dennis-SGMM
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Thank you. Those guys saved my ass a couple of times.
HeartlandLiberal
My wife’s aunt’s third husband J.T. was too old for the draft in WWII, in his forties. He volunteered, figuring he had a talent, he could assemble and disassemble just about any tractor, truck, or machine that moved like no one else, and that would keep him out of harm’s way.
On D-Day, he was dropped after the first wave of men in his tractor into the surf. He had wielded steel panels above the open cockpit. They pinged continuously as German snipers from above tried to take him out.
As soon as the beach was secured, it was his job along with some others to start cutting the road up off the beach so that men and materiel could start flowing off the beach and into Europe.
He worked on that road for about 48 hours non-stop. Finally given a break, he parked his tractor in a French farmer’s orchard to catch a nap. The farmer came over to greet him, although neither spoke the other’s language. He had smuggle a tin of bacon into the tractor with him, against regulations. He showed it to the farmer. The Frenchman motioned for him to follow, and took him to his hen house, and motioned at the eggs, obviously telling him to help himself. “Des Oeuvres”, J.T. quoted the Frenchman as saying, as he recounted this tale for us about three years ago on a Memorial Day visit.
“Des Oeuvres”, he said again, with a far away look in his eyes. He paused a moment, laughed, and said “You know, I don’t remember another single word of French, but I will never forged ‘Des Oeuvres’.”
He scrambled up the eggs and ate them with his bacon, napped for a few hours, then got back in his tractor and proceeded to do his part in the liberation of Europe.
He died a year almost a year later, at the age of 96.
I am just sorry I cannot spend more memorial days with him.
His generation has not known its like again.
GReynoldsCT00
We’re not picnicing, we’re having a sit down dinner, my step-dad’s favorite meal. He was dropped out of helicopters for two tours in Nam. How anyone can do that and keep it together as he has, amazes me. We’ll toast a scotch for all the guys who didn’t make it home.
SrirachaHotSauce
Memorial Day. Here’s a tip of the hat to my father, who flew one of these in WWII in the Pacific.
He was an interesting character, my old man, and even compared to me, one of the biggest pains in the ass in the history of the universe. But he enlisted in the Navy during that big war and went off to see what he could do to help.
Thomas Levenson
Yup. My father in law served on a destroyer on the Murmansk run and commanded an LST on a couple of the really bad Pacific landings (and conned it, unscathed through the big typhoon in ’45). He’ll be 90 next Feb. A life lived.
Thomas Levenson
apologies for the reflexive double click. Just to add — my dad, dead these forty years, and missed the whole time, was on a ship in the landing area at Leyte Gulf while one of my best friend’s fathers was flying off a Jeep carrier trying to keep the Japanese battleship force from eating the American landing force for lunch. We each owe them…
Indylib
My Grandfather who has been gone for 35 years was a WWII vet. He didn’t do anything heroic or exciting. He was a Marine and served as a meteorological assistant at Pearl Harbor starting in July 1942. His last name was Catlin, strangely enough there was a Camp Catlin in the Honolulu military congolmeration of Navy bases, Marine barracks, and Army camps. It’s now part of the military housing in Honolulu. I know for dang sure it’s not named after him, but I’ve never been able to find out where the name came from.
Just Some Fuckhead
Enjoy.
Terri
I’m going to drink 2 beers today. One for my Uncle Billy, who could have been the Marine that you see on the posters. He served 2 tours in Vietnam, and wanted to go back for another, but developed a strange cancerous tumor in his leg, which spread and killed him within 11 months of coming home. We’ve always thought he should be on the Wall, convinced that what killed him was Agent Orange. He taught me how to box, much to my mother’s dismay, claiming that girls should know how to defend themselves, as the world was full of assholes. I worshipped the ground he walked on. His untimely death was one of the defining moments in my childhood.
The other beer is for my late friend, Dennis(Denny) Marvicsin. Denny was one of the most decorated helicopter pilots in Vietnam. His first tour he flew Hueys, which he despised, then later was one of the first to fly Cobras. His medals, which include bronze stars, silver stars, and 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses, still hang in his “yay me” room. He co-wrote “Maverick, the personal war of a Cobra pilot”. Good read. Denny was one of those people, who although small in stature, would fill up a room when he walked in. Although I met Denny later in his life, he was one of those people that felt like a long lost friend found. I still look for him to walk around the corner when I visit his wife Sharon. I miss his machine gun laugh. It’s hard to say this, but I’m almost glad Denny didn’t live to see what the Iraq war became. His only shortcoming was that he believed the American people wouldn’t have “allowed” another Vietnam, at least not in his lifetime. I am glad he was spared that, having seen what Vietnam cost him.
So, today I’ll think about you both, unable to articulate what your brief presence in my life meant, then and now. I wish I could tell you how much I miss you both, or how grateful I am for your service and sacrifice. Somehow, nothing seems adequate.
Here’s to you both.
Cheers.
SrirachaHotSauce
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I am never clicking on one of your links again. All that aggravation to load a video that I have no desire to see and which has nothing to do with anything.
It’s the BJ form of tagging, graffiti.
I suppose it’s fine late on a Friday night when everyone is drunk and everything seems hilarious.
SrirachaHotSauce
@SrirachaHotSauce:
And if you really want to sing Down By the Riverside, then this is the video.
Not the Gay Men’s Chorus that sounds just like the choral group I sang in when I was 11.
Notice how I tipped the content to my video so that if you had no interest in it, or were behind a firewall where that content is blocked, you would have a clue and be able to make choice.
A little courtesy that took me, oh, maybe 12 seconds to arrange for you.
The Grand Panjandrum
James Fallows linked to this Map of the Fallen.
Its worth your time to go through it and read some of the stories. All of it done by one guy. Moving and amazing.
Dayv
I will think of the fallen in My Lai, Hiroshima, El Salvador, Iraq, El Salvador, and hundreds of other places who have ended up on the wrong end of US guns and bombs.
I’m used to being the minority report.
Balconesfault
My dad was lucky enough to not visit the wonderful beaches at Normandy until the day after D-Day.
He did have a lot less fun during the Battle of the Bulge – a forward observer for the artillery, he was trapped behind German lines for well over a week, in the middle of the freezing woods, after his position got bypassed by the Panzer columns. His years of Boy Scouting in Pennsylvania training paid off well.
He’s still going strong at 85. Voted for Obama, as well.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Dennis-SGMM: He was HAL-3, 67-68, Chosin River.
Laura W
I was googling my then-dead father a few years back and found these photos of him in the Navy. Ellis Coolidge Winzeler. Three Radiomen. He’s far right. I’m not sure what a Destroyer Escort is, but that ship apparently had some history.
I believe he was 19 when he entered, sort of lost in life and “punky”. The only thing I ever recall him saying about his time in the Navy was that it made a man out of him.
You can imagine his pride when my wayward brother was dishonorably discharged from the Navy for pot.
Poor Dad. Nothing but disappointing kids all around.
M. Bouffant
@Dennis-SGMM:
Dennis, my father was aboard the USS Tangier, which was moored just aft of the Utah, on December 7th, ’41.
A gunners mate, just out of his hammock, wearing only his skivvies. The Tangier was probably the first to fire on the attacking aircraft.
Let’s not, though, forget all those who died, & never had the chance to create even more Boomers than we’re already cursed w/.
Dennis-SGMM
@M. Bouffant:
Now there’s a coincidence. Dad swam ashore in his his skivvies. He had grabbed a U.S.S. Utah pocket knife and a little sewing kit. He broke the blade of the pocket knife forcing someone’s back gate so that he could steal some clothes off of a clothesline. I still have both. Before he passed away I asked him why he chose the sewing kit and he told me that he was in a hurry and that it just seemed like something that would come in handy.
My dad was a hard hat diver. He had to dive on the Utah. Among the bodies he recovered was that of his best friend. Those dives gave him nightmares until the end of his days. He switched specialties later in the war and was Rated as a gunner’s mate. He never dove again once the initial recovery and salvage was done at Pearl.
The sinking of the Utah was particularly pointless because she’d been stripped of all of her armament in the 30’s as part of her conversion to a target ship for naval aviators. At the same time her decks were covered with heavy timbers to resist the impact of the sand-filled practice bombs. As she listed heavily prior to capsizing many the timbers came adrift and in rolling across the deck they killed or wounded sailors who otherwise would have made it.
Dennis-SGMM
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Before my time. Please shake the hand of one of the Seawolves for me nonetheless. I came to know the outfit when I was stationed with CTF-116 at NSAD Binh Thuy which was on the Bassac River (Southernmost mouth of the mighty Mekong). We were so young then.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
My late father was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Utah on December 7th, 1941.
The bell from the Utah is now in front of the Naval Science Building at the University of Utah, about 100 yards from where I work. It’s hard to see in that picture, just to the left of the bottom of the flagpole (there’s a little picture of just the bell here.)
My thanks to your dad and all the other veterans, living and no longer with us.
Yutsano
Soooo glad no rightwing asshats ran away with this thread like they did on Swampland. Of course they caught me in a very moody sort when it comes to this day. Have a good friend who does very scary things for the Army who’s disappeared for about two months now. Let’s just say it’s not a good idea to play the song “Brothers” around me right now, unless you want to see me turn into a pile of goo.
Dennis-SGMM
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
Thank you. Good to see that at least a bit of the old girl is still above water.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Dennis-SGMM: My dad said his unit in ’67 was the first HAL outfit. He said the Navy didn’t have helicopters so they rented ’em from the Army.
He also told me that ya can’t get .22 ammunition anymore and starting next month all ammo will be produced with a chip in it that let’s the Gummint find ya and take it back after a certain amount of time, so ya know..
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Dennis-SGMM: You’re welcome.
I don’t know how I messed up that last comment – it was supposed to have one of these reply links. Oh well.
Dennis-SGMM
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Ha! Our fixed wing squadron, VAL-4, acquired their OV-10A aircraft from the Marines. HAL-3 still owes me a wall clock and a set of skivs from the time that one of the gunners spun the barrels on his minigun the wrong way while attempting to clear them. Instead of ejecting the rounds all six barrels fired out, destroying the clock, my meager peace of mind, and providing Miss February with an additional navel.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Dennis-SGMM: He said they didn’t have miniguns in the early days. They just hung out the door with m60s. He said they installed a 50 caliber machine gun on one chopper but it only a lasted a couple weeks because using it caused the rivets to rip out – the ones holding the helicopter together.
JK
Donation Page for Disabled American Veterans
https://secure3.convio.net/dav/site/Donation2?idb=603213009&df_id=1300&1300.donation=form1
Dennis-SGMM
@Just Some Fuckhead:
By the time I knew them, their Hueys had a .50 cal poking out of one door, a 7.62 minigun poking out of the other door, another minigun underneath the belly of the aircraft on a hydraulic mount aimed by the co-pilot and two seven-shot pods carrying 2.5″ folding fin aircraft rockets. I spent many hours repacking “door boxes” for the mini, removing the cardboard packing between the layers of belted 7.62mm NATO rounds and reducing the tracer rounds from every fifth round to every fifteenth so that the barrels would last a bit longer. This was after we stopped getting replacements at Binh Thuy so everyone did everything regardless of specialty.HAL-3 left a few months before we did and, believe me, we missed ’em. “Look at all those friendly indians…”
Edit: Ask dad if he ever brassed a tail rotor. That will get him up off of the couch in a heartbeat.