64 years ago today ..

[2muchcoffeeman]

We salute those who fell at Omaha Beach, and we salute those who survived and succeeded.

 

[Moderator1]

38 years ago today I was Bar Mitzvahed, which pales in significance.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Mazel Tov, anyhow.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

 

[mustangj17]

33 years ago today, my parents got married.

 

[writing irish]

 

[Flying Headbutt]

I just recently read some of Hemingway's magazine articles from WWII. Definitely some wild **** in there.

 

[slappy4428]

Would have been my late grandmother's 108th birthday...

 

[alleyallen]

I wasn't there in 1944, obviously, but I was there in 1994 and the ceremonies were incredibly emotional and dramatic. Since that day, I've read nearly EVERYTHING I can on the subject.

It's easily one of the most pivotal days in the planet's history.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

. . . was the beginning of the end for a very, very special set of dirtbags.

Rot in hell, Rat-Mothers.

 

[writing irish]

I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench, an old man was sittin' there.
I said, "Your old court house is kinda run down,
He said, "Naw, it'll do for our little town."
I said, "Your old flag pole is leaned a little bit,
And that's a ragged old flag you got hangin' on it."
He said, "Have a seat," and I sat down,
"Is this the first time you've been to our little town?"
I said, "I think it is."
He said "I don't like to brag, but we're kinda proud of
That Ragged Old Flag."

"You see, we got a little hole in that flag there,
When Washington took it across the Delaware.
and It got powder burned the night Francis Scott Key sat watching it,
writing "O Say Can You See"
It got a rip in New Orleans, with Packingham and Jackson
tugging at its seams.
and It almost fell at the Alamo
beside the Texas flag,
But she waved on though.
She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville,
And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg,
And the south wind blew hard on
That Ragged Old Flag.

"On Flanders Field in World War I,
She got a big hole from a Bertha Gun,
She turned blood red in World War II
She hung limp, and low, a time or two,
She was in Korea and Vietnam
She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam.
She waved from our ships upon the briny foam
and now they've about quit wavin' back here at home
in her own good land here she's been abused,
She's been burned, dishonored, denied an' refused,
And the government for which she stands
Has been scandalized throughout out the land.
And she's getting thread bare, and she's wearin' thin,
But she's in good shape, for the shape she's in.
Cause she's been through the fire before
and I believe she can take a whole lot more.

"So we raise her up every morning
And we bring her down slow every night,
We don't let her touch the ground,
And we fold her up right.
On second thought
I *do* like to brag
Cause I'm mighty proud of
That Ragged Old Flag."

 

[Claws for Concern]

Never forget days like this ... ever.

 

[Birdscribe]

Twenty-one years ago today, the future Mrs. Birdscribe and I went on our first date. That she is a historian and I'm a history freak did not go unnoticed that night.

And 64 years ago tomorrow (June 7 or D-plus 1), one Corporal Birdscribe Sr. came ashore on Utah Beach. He would spend that first night in Hitler's soon-to-fall Fortress Europa running around with medics, tending to wounded soldiers.

I still well up thinking about what he -- and hundreds of thousands of his brethren -- went through those days.

 

[Boomer7]

A reminder to anyone with XM -- Channel 4 is (again) airing much of the CBS radio news broadcasts from 6/6/44 today, interspersed with music. Fascinating stuff.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

One of Charles Schultz's best series of Peanuts comic strips was the one where he shows Snoopy telling the story of the D-Day invasion, with the final strip of Snoopy as a soldier coming onto the beach. I believe Schultz did the series for the 50th anniversary, although I could be wrong.

 

[Ace]

What's amazing is that so much of the plan to drop in gliders and paratroopers to help take out the guns and support the troops landing on the beach was a complete bust, still they did it.

Well done, men.