The Greatest Generation...and Memorial Day

[neali]

How f'k'd up is it for people to wish others a Happy Memorial Day? A lot of ads do this too. Shows a lack of understanding at best. PBS was running ads for a documentary on the contributions of Asian Americans during their Memorial Day programming. Also f'k'd up. Mark Hamill was in The Big Red One which is kind of cool.

No one ran a full day of great war movies. No Midway. No Longest Day. No Tora Tora Tora.

All 10 episodes of band of brothers was broadcast on HBO. A set of interviews with surviving vets from the 101st Airborne preceded each episode.

 

[mgcolby]

Thanks for the lesson. I guess the guys I got together with needed the lesson since we collectively have about 150 years of military and combat experience between us. I visited the grave sites of friends and family as did they, and then our families got together and partied for the rest of the day. Our kids played all day while we drank and ate until our guts busted but yeah, "**** me and my friends... we're the problem with the country"... thanks for the reminder and lesson on American etiquette first thing Tuesday morning.

Nothing I love more than false outrage by civies using us to prop up their 1 or 2 day a year notions about veterans.

Here's another lesson. I'm perfectly fine with people not understanding what Memorial day is about. That means they likely have not lost anyone or are too young to understand and that's fine by me. For some of us, we just do the best we can.

I'm thinking you let something gloss over your reading comprehension, politics I'm guessing, but could be wrong. You seem to have missed an awful lot of what I wrote. First being that I'm a Veteran, yes I have DD-214 as well, its all notarized and everything, so no false outrage and have no problems with get togethers. As I mentioned in my post. But my guess based on your post is that you already understood the difference between Veterans day and Memorial Day. Good for you and your buddies, (thanks for your service) but its truly sad how many who have served or are currently serving that don't.

And to a post by someone else in the thread, not sure if you was you or not...but I get that we didn't/don't serve to protect the rights of just those we agree with. We served to protect all. I remind myself of that every time I see some ******* burn our flag.

 

[FirstAndGoal]

If you're a vet, why sh!t all over vets then? Politics has nothing to do with it. Not even sure why you went there (politics). You served and took an oath to protect the Constitution yet you want people to act how you think they should and you sh!t all over your fellow vets because they did not act like you wanted. Memorial Day is a personal experience and I don't want anyone pretending to care if they don't.

"It makes me want to punch a fellow vet in the face when I meet him in the bar "

You call that a statement worthy of Memorial Day? Sorry, but that's a pretty sorry statement. I won't have anything more to say about this but I won't sh!t all over vets. I'll leave that one to others.

"If you end up being offended...then go **** yourself....you ARE the problem in this country"

Yup, I'm the problem (because yes, I was offended). "Love it or leave it", right?

 

[mgcolby]

If you're a vet, why sh!t all over vets then? Politics has nothing to do with it. Not even sure why you went there (politics). You served and took an oath to protect the Constitution yet you want people to act how you think they should and you sh!t all over your fellow vets because they did not act like you wanted. Memorial Day is a personal experience and I don't want anyone pretending to care if they don't.

"It makes me want to punch a fellow vet in the face when I meet him in the bar " and he says “happy memorial day”

You call that a statement worthy of Memorial Day? Sorry, but that's a pretty sorry statement. I won't have anything more to say about this but I won't sh!t all over vets. I'll leave that one to others.

"If you end up being offended...then go **** yourself....you ARE the problem in this country"

Yup, I'm the problem (because yes, I was offended). "Love it or leave it", right?

Cute what you did there, clearly at best you have a reading comprehension problem, at worst you are truly disingenuous. Either way arguing/debating with you is not something I care to do. So this too will be my last reply to you. ****ting on vets? Not sure where I did that. But I do call out other vets that don't have a clue what the day's meaning is, and yes Memorial Day is not a "happy day".

Well if you were offended, then you are correct GFY and have have a nice day, IF of course you are vet. I mean since we are now questioning the service of others and all.

 

[DarrylS]

All 10 episodes of band of brothers was broadcast on HBO. A set of interviews with surviving vets from the 101st Airborne preceded each episode.

In the documentary narrated by BB on D-Day there was a snippet on **** Winters taking out a battery of guns on that day.. which I did not remember and found interesting..

Here are some interesting Major Winters quotes ..
Life Advice From Major **** Winters | The Art of Manliness

An aside, my now dead next door neighbor who experienced all of the major battles in WW II, died of mesothelioma and could not figure out how he could have contracted that cancer... he would often talk about after the Battle of the Bulge they brought in big semi's and had the GI's strip take a shower and were deloused... wonder what they deloused them with?? No conspiracy, just a thought..

 

[Tony2046]

In the documentary narrated by BB on D-Day there was a snippet on **** Winters taking out a battery of guns on that day.. which I did not remember and found interesting..

Here are some interesting Major Winters quotes ..
Life Advice From Major **** Winters | The Art of Manliness

An aside, my now dead next door neighbor who experienced all of the major battles in WW II, died of mesothelioma and could not figure out how he could have contracted that cancer... he would often talk about after the Battle of the Bulge they brought in big semi's and had the GI's strip take a shower and were deloused... wonder what they deloused them with?? No conspiracy, just a thought..

The military used Asbestos a lot.

Asbestos Exposure in Various Military Branches & Wars

 

[YOUGOTMOSSED]

I enjoy history as well. I agree that we would not have been speaking German but the damage the Nazi's did could have been much much worse.

Their economy was replenished by creative pyramidal methods such as, "I conquer you and you will work for me", "I conquer your country and your resources are mine" or "I borrow money from you and I won't invade you". Very complex, I know.

Their military technology and scientists were used to advance the US into the space age and our military into jet aircraft. The Luftwaffe already had jets albeit very few. V2's were evolving. They were close to an atomic weapon but ran out of time. etc etc..

They initially had control of the channel until the Polish and the British had broken the Enigma code and the British and the US had improved/developed sonar and radar technology (the birth of Raytheon btw).

Anyways thank God the Allies kept constant pressure on Germany which forced them into a series of strategic blunders (Stalingrad) because if not things could have been much worse. We definitely would have known how to speak some German. Luftwaffe. Blitzkrieg. Kindergarten. Bier. Hamburger.

Some interesting "what if" history if we just let Stalin and Hitler duke it out. Perhaps we wouldn't have wasted all that time and money on the "cold war." Maybe the CIA would have remained an objective, intelligence gathering service rather than becoming a shadow government making a mockery out of the democratic process. Who knows?

 

[PP2]

Some interesting "what if" history if we just let Stalin and Hitler duke it out. Perhaps we wouldn't have wasted all that time and money on the "cold war." Maybe the CIA would have remained an objective, intelligence gathering service rather than becoming a shadow government making a mockery out of the democratic process. Who knows?

Contrary to what has been taught in history classes in the US, the Russians were the deciding factor in WW2, not America. What we don't teach here is that the Eastern Front was much, much bigger than the Western Front and Hitler concentrated most of his forces there.

Many historians, military and civilian also agree that the biggest turning point of WW2 was the battle of Stalingrad.

Russia also paid the butcher's bill- and we should be so fortunate for that.

 

[Tony2046]

Contrary to what has been taught in history classes in the US, the Russians were the deciding factor in WW2, not America. What we don't teach here is that the Eastern Front was much, much bigger than the Western Front and Hitler concentrated most of his forces there.

Many historians, military and civilian also agree that the biggest turning point of WW2 was the battle of Stalingrad.

Russia also paid the butcher's bill- and we should be so fortunate for that.

I would not call it the deciding factor but it was definitely a major key. Hitler's need to take Stalingrad was a result of needing to replenish his quickly depleting oil supplies. That fact that taking a city named after the Russian ruler was just an added bonus. His real objective was control over the Caucasus oil fields.

Hitler was held off from capturing oil reserves by the British, the US etc... in Africa and from the Caucasus oil fields by Russia. The reason Hitler needed that oil was that the US, Britain and Russia were outproducing Germany in war materials at a rate of greater than 7-1. Every plane Germany made the US made four, Britain made two and Russia made one. Germany's gas guzzling military needed to keep up and needed the oil to do so.

Hitler's need for oil forced them into the battle at Stalingrad and he diverted his attention away from the UK to capture control of it.

Anyways there were a few major factors that turned that war around and Stalingrad was definitely one of them. Cracking the Enigma code, developing radar/sonar technology, outproducing Germany's war machine, cutting off their access to heavy water, and the continuous bombardments were other keys.

To say that America wasn't a deciding factor is completely false. All members of the allied forces were deciding factors.

 

[YOUGOTMOSSED]

Contrary to what has been taught in history classes in the US, the Russians were the deciding factor in WW2, not America. What we don't teach here is that the Eastern Front was much, much bigger than the Western Front and Hitler concentrated most of his forces there.

Many historians, military and civilian also agree that the biggest turning point of WW2 was the battle of Stalingrad.

Russia also paid the butcher's bill- and we should be so fortunate for that.

True. The Eastern front was something like 4x the scale of the whole western front.

Hitler never stood a chance against Russia. He rolled through Europe and had UK on the ropes but that was mostly due to luck and the decision making of his subordinates. Despite Hitler's "evil genius" reputation, we're talking about a guy who was too stupid to get into art school.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

True. The Eastern front was something like 4x the scale of the whole western front.

Hitler never stood a chance against Russia. He rolled through Europe and had UK on the ropes but that was mostly due to luck and the decision making of his subordinates. Despite Hitler's "evil genius" reputation, we're talking about a guy who was too stupid to get into art school.

The length of the front is significant, and indicates, to an extent, the relative casualties, but only to an extent.

The Russians and the Germans, among combatants, did most of the dyin'... I like what these guys have done to get across the numbers

 

[Mike the Brit]

@PatsFanInVa Excellent video. Thanks very much for sharing.