Today we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Allies landing on the Normandy beaches on 6th June 1944.

Dawn breaks on the Longest Day: Flags fly at half mast on the beaches of Northern France where 70 years ago today 150,000 Allied troops mounted the biggest amphibious invasion on D-Day | Mail Online

We live the life we do today because of those guys.

__________________
I just hate to give up my Christmas spirit.

Yes, we are free. They sacrificed a lot. One 90 something year old who parachuted that day also did a tandem parachute drop yesterday. Imagine that - at 90 or so years old.

Making it political, (which I know I shouldn't), the fallen soldiers would turn in their graves if they saw the state of the UK today.

I know my uncles would be spinning to see what we let become of the U.S.

__________________
I just hate to give up my Christmas spirit.

They would be saying "I can't believe these people with such good lives spend so much time fighting with each other,,, Idiots"

Can we just acknowledge the sacrifices they made to turn the tide in a nasty war. This is not a thread to bring bitching into. Today's ceremonies showed vets helping each other to get around just as they did on that memorable day 70 years ago.

__________________
I don't have much ammo, but will gladly waste some on you!

D-Day was unquestionably the most significant day for the Allied effort create a secondary front to draw of German forces from the Eastern Front where the primary military conflicts between the Allies and Germany occured during the war. Preceded by the invasions of Sicily and Italy, including the Anzio landing, it predated the invasion of Southern France in August 1944.

Germany's ultimate fate had already been determined by the earlier major defeats of German forces on the Eastern Front in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. With the invasions of Western Europe it allowed the Soviets to launch a major offensive that ultimately defeated Germany. Without this secondary front the fight on the Eastern Front could have dragged on for another year or more before Germany's eventual defeat.

The D-Day invasion was crucial to the overall plan to defeat Germany but many mistakenly believe that the US defeated German. The invasions of Italy, Normandy, and Southern France were all essential in drawing off German forces from the Eastern Front but they were all diversionary attacks and did not represent the primary military battles of WW II that all occured on the Eastern Front. Even the famous Battle of the Bulge, while significant militarily, was merely a desperate last ditch effort by Germany that would have done nothing to stop the incessant advance of the Russian Army on Berlin.

Many historians believe the arctic convoys providing military supplies to Russia were more important. Russia had the manpower but not the arms necessary to defeat Germany and these convoys that were highly dangerous undertakings for the merchant marines were key to supplying those arms. The icy waters almost always resulted in death for the crew if their ship was sunk and while the Battle of the Atlantic received more coverage the single largest loss of ships to a single convoy of WW II was arctic convoy PQ 17 where all but 11 of 35 merchant ships were lost. Adding to this Russia also developed the T-34 tank first introduced in 1940 and is arguably one of the finest overall tanks of WW II.

This is not be any means to downplay the efforts of British, Canadian, or US forces that attacked the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944. They were unquestionably heroic beyond measure and were barely able to succeed in securing the beachhead. Had it not been for the failure of German reserve forces to respond immediately the invasion would have probably been pushed back into the sea. The struggle at Utah and Omaha Beach were so critical to the invasion, and the efforts of those that fought and died there so valant that their sacrifices cannot be understated.

Even as a fellow combat veteran it is still impossible for me to fully comprehend how horrific that day was for them as I suffered nothing in combat that can even be compared to it. There are different intensity levels in war and while I might have experienced Level 5 they unquestionably faced Level 10 and like the Richter Scale each level is 10-times worse that the one below it. There is also a fundamental difference between "combat" and "war" as the soldier experiences combat while the military engages in war. The combat at Normandy was some of the worst in all of WW II matched by only a few other combat situation such as Tarawa or Iwo Jima in the Pacific Campaign. This is also not to discount the fact that "combat" even on a very small scale can be as horrifying to the soldier.

What those soldiers accomplished on D-Day was perhaps one of the most heroic of any actions that any soldier in any situation could ever perform. For that alone we should always remember that "Day in History" because it's about them and not really about WW II. We should remember the soldier as those that participated in the Normandy invasion represent every soldier that has ever fought in any war.

__________________
"I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it's dirty on the inside." Donald Trump

"I always had a rule, if the White House is dirty on the inside, it's dirty on the outside." ShivaTD

Based upon the corruption, brutality, inhumanity, immorality, dishonesty, and incompetence of the Trump administration the White House is the dirtiest house in America and there's no known cleanser that with remove the stains of the Trump Administration.

My dad (may G-d Bless his Soul) joined the war in 1941 at the age of 17. He served in North Africa and Burma.

Same for my dad PF. He joined the merchant marines at 16 and saw some nasty sinking of ships. He always says he was a lucky one who got to pick up survivors rather than being on one that was sunk.

__________________
I don't have much ammo, but will gladly waste some on you!

My dad didn't speak much about what he went through. He glossed over it, as quite a few veterans do. As kids we laughed that he said he was a desert rat as his unit was called. We thought it hilarious as young kids would.

Eighth Army (United Kingdom) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia