OT: D-day hybrid before/after pics

[akelman]

Also, the question of willingness to serve at an individual level is interesting, and I think it was almost certainly greater during the Civil War. Though it's hard to measure such things, individual Americans, Northerners and Southerners, have likely never been more committed to a war than that one.

[malcolm]

Originally Posted by akelman

I don't really feel like wading into the fever swamp, but the idea that the War of Independence was somehow more justifiable than the United States's participation in WWII seems odd to me. I'd like to hear more about that line of argument, but only if the usual keyboard commandos aren't going to jump up and down and claim that an internet discussion on an obscure cycling website somehow defiles the memories of those who served.

I suspect the commitment may have been similar or even greater for the civil war, but WW2 was across peoples and cultures essentially world wide. People got it and thought it was worth sacrifice. Even non combatants, look what the population at home was willing to do or give up (in the US). I can't imagine what they would sacrifice like that for now.

[akelman]

Originally Posted by malcolm

I can't imagine what they would sacrifice like that for now.

I expect you'd be surprised. Europe between the wars was perhaps the most libertine place in the history of the modern world. And after the horrors of WWI, the majority of Americans were deeply committed to isolationism until the Roosevelt administration used a combination of thoughtful argument and propaganda to shift the culture. Yet despite Europe's decadence and the U.S.'s reluctance to fight, the willingness to serve and sacrifice during the war was extraordinary.

I imagine, for all of the complaints around here and elsewhere about how things are so much worse now than they used to be and how the spoiled kids these days are ruining everything with their hip-hop music and their fixed-gear bikes, that we're just as capable of rising to the occasion if need be as we once were. Let's just hope that there's no need, because war is best avoided.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by The B

I'll show you my dd214 sometime, and my scars.

Maybe your education in history too. Don't need to see your dd214, you don't need to see mine. Wars seldom make sense, but sometimes in the face of tyranny and domination by evil person(s), they do.

Thank you for your service if indeed you were in the military.

[Rada]

Originally Posted by malcolm

I suspect the commitment may have been similar or even greater for the civil war, but WW2 was across peoples and cultures essentially world wide. People got it and thought it was worth sacrifice. Even non combatants, look what the population at home was willing to do or give up (in the US). I can't imagine what they would sacrifice like that for now.

I think the support for wars past has been exaggerated by "history". In the Civil War for example desertion rates for both sides was high, draft riots in the North, unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, numerous wealthy men on both sides buying their way out of service, etc. Having said that, the staggering loses that both sides endured in combat is something that is today hard to comprehend. The bravery of those men to stand in the face of such slaughter is unimaginable.

[malcolm]

Originally Posted by akelman

I expect you'd be surprised. Europe between the wars was perhaps the most libertine place in the history of the modern world. And after the horrors of WWI, the majority of Americans were deeply committed to isolationism until the Roosevelt administration used a combination of thoughtful argument and propaganda to shift the culture. Yet despite Europe's decadence and the U.S.'s reluctance to fight, the willingness to serve and sacrifice during the war was extraordinary.

I imagine, for all of the complaints around here and elsewhere about how things are so much worse now than they used to be and how the spoiled kids these days are ruining everything with their hip-hop music and their fixed-gear bikes, that we're just as capable of rising to the occasion if need be as we once were. Let's just hope that there's no need, because war is best avoided.

I hope you are right and I suspect given the right circumstance you are. Hitler provided the world an evil everyone could agree on. With the media and everything the way it is today I hope we would be galvanized across continents by something that wrong/evil.

[malcolm]

Originally Posted by Rada

I think the support for wars past has been exaggerated by "history". In the Civil War for example desertion rates for both sides was high, draft riots in the North, unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, numerous wealthy men on both sides buying their way out of service, etc. Having said that, the staggering loses that both sides endured in combat is something that is today hard to comprehend. The bravery of those men to stand in the face of such slaughter is unimaginable.

I agree, but in modern times I don't recall anyone standing in line to enlist. There was certainly a push in the US for WW1 but we were quite late to that affair and it was nothing like WW2. Certainly there was political posturing and everyone tried to serve their best interests, but we worked together for a common goal in a remarkable way.

[Rada]

Originally Posted by malcolm

I agree, but in modern times I don't recall anyone standing in line to enlist. There was certainly a push in the US for WW1 but we were quite late to that affair and it was nothing like WW2. Certainly there was political posturing and everyone tried to serve their best interests, but we worked together for a common goal in a remarkable way.

I do agree that WWII was the moment that pulled America together more than any war in US history. I would say there was more than just political posturing for us to enter the war on the side of the Allies. We were not exactly neutral in Europe and we pretty much painted Japan into a corner. Not that I disagree with Roosevelt's policies, but US entry into the war was made inevitable.

[gasman]

June 6, 1944.

The day many young soldiers became men and many of them made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

Thank you.

[makoti]

Thanks for posting this. I'd forgotten what day it was. Shame on me.

[roguedog]

yep.. thanks for the bump of this thread and the reminder.

[Jeff N.]

Visited Normandy/Omaha Beach in July, 2014. Took a train from Paris. It was an unforgettable experience. I'd like to go back, actually.

[firemanj92]

Originally Posted by roguedog

yep.. thanks for the bump of this thread and the reminder.

As stated, thanks again

[Buzz]

Thanks for posting this. Highly recommended to visit this area I did as a teenager in the 1970s and then again with my teenage daughters who actually enjoyed it and got a lot out of the history. It was a frequent discussion while we're were there if people 25 years from now would understand or appreciate what happened on that day. Time and history moves on. WW2 now accounts for all of about 18 pages in my daughters high school text book with the main themes being Nazi /fascism and social changes in wartime US.

Regarding the photos our French tour guide of the d-day sights remarked as we were at Omaha Beach that she always had a hard time seeing people using the beach for recreational purposes knowing the past carnage and present solemnity of the area. She then met a d-day veteran who said he thought it was good that people were using the beach in peace as nature had intended.

If you walk out on Omaha beach to the water and turn around you realize that when those guys were coming ashore there is zero cover for a good 200-300 yards. The only reason you weren't shot was that someone else was getting killed.

The other thing that was striking is the immense size of the "battlefield". This isn't like a civil war or revolutionary war battlefield confined to a few square miles but a box 35 plus miles long and then miles inland. Mind boggling.

The cemetery there is beautifully maintained by French workers paid for by the U.S. govt.