"And as we walked along the beaches of Normandy..."

[unixronin]

...We came to Juno, Omaha and Gold
And whispered a prayer for the boys
Who'd said goodbye to it all

Sixty-two years ago today, the one of my two grandfathers whom I knew personally was not on Omaha Beach, or on Gold, Sword, Juno or Utah.  He was serving in the 8th Army, then engaged in the liberation of Italy, having helped to drive the Axis powers out of North Africa under the command of General Montgomery.  (He may actually have still been in a military hospital on D-Day, or he may have been at Messina; I don't know for sure.)

Ironically, this was not my Italian grandfather.  He wasn't in Normandy on D-Day either.  He was in Thailand, in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, building a bridge over the Kwai river to complete the rail link to Burma, where he and many others had been captured while serving under General Stilwell.

It was said of them and their contemporaries that they were "the Greatest Generation".  And whether they came ashore on the beaches of Normandy, or parachuted in ahead of the invasion, or were already in combat elsewhere in the world, in Europe, in the Far East, in Scandinavia, even on the Eastern Front, they did their part.  And when they were done, most of them came home and set out to rebuild what needed rebuilding, and to build a better world from the one they had.

They served and asked no reward.  They gave willingly, and did not count the cost.  Many of them never came home again, and some of those who did found they had to liberate their own hometowns from the greedy and corrupt who had taken control in their absence.  So they did that, too.  And then they went back to their homes and their lives, asking no special privileges or thanks.

A lot has happened since then.  You will hear many opinions on whether we have maintained their legacy, improved upon it, or let it wither by the wayside.  I personally think there's truth in all three viewpoints.

But never forget that the world today would be a very different place had not those men stormed ashore from fragile landing craft in the teeth of barbed wire, storms of machinegun fire, mortars and artillery, advancing through tank traps and mines against prepared positions, backed up by tanks inferior to those of their enemy, often driven by untrained replacement crews thrown together on the spot, but all determined that they weren't going home until the job was done, and that their job would not be done until the atrocities of the SS and Gestapo came to an end, until the death camps were liberated, until Europe was once again free.

And never forget that freedom is NOT free, nor liberty easy.

Comments

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

In my case, it was my parents. Mom (b.1936) grew up in Norway during the Nazi occupation. Dad (b.922, d.1996) was somewhere in the Pacific theater, maintaining radar on nightfighter aircraft. He did two tours in the Pacific; the first with the Marines (island-based), and the second with the Navy aboard the USS Intrepid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Intrepid_%28CV-11%29).

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

My dad was born in 1926. He was too young to go off and instead stayed home and organized the first National Guard group for the area.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

My father was stationed at Bodø for a while when he was in RAF Coastal Command. He told of taking a cab ride and wondering how to talk to the driver. He didn't speak Norwegian, but a lot of the street names looked similar to German, so he tried German. The driver reacted quite abruptly, and asked sharply, "Sind Sie Deutsch?", to which my father replied, "Nein, Englisch." The cabbie then told him, "Please, just speak English. Most people you meet will speak and understand enough English. But don't speak German. Hearing German brings back unpleasant memories for us."

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

My mother refuses to have any money invested in German companies. With globalization, this is a difficult thing to avoid, but she's trying to avoid the obvious ones.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

your dad lived over a thousand years? colour me impressed!

[smandal.livejournal.com]

True that.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

My mother's two brothers were both involved, one hit the beaches, the other with a parachute. My father's brother-in-law was a forward observer for the german artillery at the beach, and carries some US shrapnel in his Tibia to this day from that invasion. My father (b 1931) was just a bit too young to be drafted by Hitler, (they did try) and was able to remain out of the Nazi forces. My Opa served on the German eastern front as a surgeon. My dad's family left East Germany in 1952. Family reunions are interesting.

I know the price that my family paid for liberty. I value that purchase. Just because it is not free or easy does not mean it is not worth it.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It's all too easy to forget that Germany paid a terrible price for Hitler's war, just as most people forget -- or never knew -- that Hitler's atrocities against the Jews paled by comparison to Stalin's atrocities against his own people.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

The Russian army had a recent purge. There were no experienced officers and little officer training. No one in that army understood how to treat the citizens of occupied territory. More than once, the Russians cleared out streets or every other house, and shot them to avoid food riots. Humans were used by the Russians as beasts of burden, all animals having been eaten. Anyone recruited for such a purpose was never seen again. Hitler was bad, Stalin was worse. It was an ugly time. My father is several inches shorter than he would have been, if not for the starvation. You can still see the emotional scars from those times.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

*nod*

My grandfather -- the one captured in Burma -- eventually committed suicide, after multiple threats and attempts. He never recovered from the Death Railway.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

never recovered from the Death Railway.

There are many things one can't recover from. That's why most things have a failsafe mode.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

my dad was in italy, beyond that, i don't when, where or why. however he did bring back a nifty bayonet which i still have!