D-Day 2014 70 years

[HoosierDaddy]

[video=youtube;wcWviqihmEU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcWviqihmEU[/video]

 

[PADDY]

They shall not grow old as we grow old...

Very sobering to even 'try' to get your modern head around what these young men were tasked to do in the face of unimaginable horror. We have little idea of just how much we owe all those involved in this Operation.

 

[LuvMyMan]

I had to wait to post a word or two on this thread. The deepest core values of what is good about the free world, seems to have been paid and such a price to pay so many lives and with no mercy from the forces of evil. It was such a war, as if all humanity was being tested. I am as my Family is also, very thankful for what freedom we do have. Some may know, my Husband served and was in the Vietnam War. Not one time has he ever felt it was a mistake to have served. But he also would state, that WWII was the most devastating of all wars. It is our wish that no more wars would come to the free world.

 

[Stearmen]

I am not sure that people like my Dad were the Greatest Generation, but their Generation sure did draw the short straw! Born just in time for the Great Depression, then as they hit 18 WWII started. They knew nothing but hardship into their 20s!

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

We must not forget! When the last of these heroes passes, their stories might be forgotten, or worse rewritten inaccurately. It's been said that "history always repeats itself". But we are not doomed to that fate if we remember and refuse to allow the evil which was defeated then to rise up again.

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

Here are some images that many of us may have never seen.
Click on the images to get the, "then and now" views.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/ng-interactive/2014/jun/01/d-day-landings-scenes-in-1944-and-now-interactive

 

[Dragon Soldier]

I was in Normandy, in Ranville to be precise, it was an anchor point for the British 6th Airborne landings.

After a busy day I was sitting on the campsite on the night of the fifth when the costal fireworks started. bangs, crashes & crumps with the occasional flash on the horizon. Atmospheric to say the least.

On the morning of the sixth at seven AM local the church bells rang... From all directions. Tremendously emotional.


I will return in future.

 

[newsman]

Emotional is very much correct. We were in Normandy for the 60th and had an amazing time. On the 5th we were in St. Marie Eglise and the 6th at the cemetery for services. The people of Normandy remember.

It's not like any other place I've ever been. The first time we were there my dad was still full-time US Navy.

We will be back again some day.