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Topic: D-Day: 75 Years Later Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Steven Brake
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Joined: 01 January 2016
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Posted: 06 June 2019 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Slightly OT, but as last year was the centenary of its ending, I read lots of books on WW1 - novels, histories, poetry collections, biographies, etc.

One of them was The Last Fighting Tommy, the biography of Harry Patch - who was born in 1898 and died in 2009. A life spanning three centuries.

He was born during the last years of the reign of Queen Victoria, and died in the early months of Barack Obama's presidency.

He was a little boy when the Wright Brothers made their first flight, and was drawing his pension when we landed on the moon.

He was a teenager when the Russian Revolution took place, and in his 90s when the Soviet Union fell. He outlived a state.

I wonder how old the last veteran will be when they finally pass?

Edited by Steven Brake on 06 June 2019 at 1:43pm
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Brian Miller
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Posted: 06 June 2019 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Luckily, the GOP chair thinks celebrating D-Day means “celebrating our President” and doesn't think Americans like the constant negativity associated with it. 
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Bruce Tartaglia
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Joined: 13 May 2019
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Posted: 06 June 2019 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

My wife has a client of 30 years that stormed Hitler's home in the Alps - where they fully expected to find him.  He married is wife before he left, and they have remained married ever since raising 4 children.  He is not faring well these days, but I know being honored in this way means a lot to him.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 06 June 2019 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

It's still hard to watch programs about the first landers... I always start thinking of bullet proof shield designs, lightest weight packs and arms, and formations for getting to cover quickest with fewest in line of fire... and then super fast landing vehicles with ways of getting personnel out fastest and onto solid ground. Sadly they underestimated the solidity of the defenses above the shore and thought the bombardment before the landing would do much more than it did, same as with some of the Pacific islands.

So many ultimate prices paid. :^(
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James Best
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Joined: 02 March 2014
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Posted: 12 June 2019 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Sadly, I fear that the significance of D-Day will be lost on the next generation of Americans. Without the veterans being alive to carry on its legacy, the connection to the past will fade away... Too many Americans today can't remember (or simply don't know) which countries made up the Axis and Allies. If you can't identify who the good guys and bad guys were, then the sacrifices that were made in the quest of freedom are going to be forgotten.

Eventually, only select citizens, dedicated historians, and the descendants of those D-Day soldiers will fully understand the personal courage that it took to invade those beaches.  
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Bob Simko
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Joined: 16 April 2004
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Posted: 12 June 2019 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I cannot imagine how terrified those troops must have been going off the
transports in those first waves. My grandfather served in the Pacific (his
brother in Europe), and proud to be related to him is an understatement.
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