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Say a Prayer Tonight...

My grandfather fought in WWII and passed away about 2 months ago. There is a short story to his last year or so with us that you might like to hear. He had finally been consumed with alzheimers at 83 years of age and could barely remember anyone in the family. However he had reverted to his younger years and according to doctors he was somewhere around 18 again. He remembered everything about the war as he was apparently living it again. People, names, and places came up that nobody had ever heard him discuss but were real. My uncle went back and had all his records pulled and come to find out my grandfather was decorated and had 2 purple hearts on top of everything else that nobody in the family including my father who is the oldest son knew about. Its heartbreaking to see us lose more and more vets everyday and only a select group of people seem to notice. :icon29:
 
I had relatives fighting on both sides and I know how my German grandparents, aunts and all felt about losing a son, brother, cousin... On the Eglish side, both grandfather and step-father lived through the war and there were no casualties. But both families were affected.

When I think back to remember the war dead, I also remember those on the "other side" because most were just doing a job, following orders.

And I remember friends, for whom I have had to "polish my boots" in some of the little "warlets" that have happened since, which I lived through, while they didn't.

And I will remember the "enemies" that have been killed before, on and since D-Day. I will remember because I am alive to do so.

And if any of my actions brought harm to an "enemy" because machines I fixed were used in combat, then I too have caused grief to a family somewhere and I will think of the unknown people who have suffered.

We glorify one event and all too often forget the others. No war is good or even right or necessary. But when they happen, the fighters on both sides are following their own particular rules and beliefs.

Remember them all

(There is no full stop there if you didn't notice, and that is deliberate because the sentence will remain unfinshed - sadly)
 
Uncle Sonny, Corporal, 2nd Battalion, Essex Regiment, killed 11th June 1944 aged 30, buried at Bayeux War Cemetary

Your family remember you
 
We will ever be in debt for the US GI's, Canadian an British soldiers who died to free Europe from a most depiscable and atrocious tyranny. I brought my kids when they were young to the beaches to tell them and will do it with my grand kids if I've any.

I will however not follow today political correctness which equates good and evil. For those who served the German war machine, who killed millions of civilians in Europe in terrorist actions like shooting 40 000 (read forty thousand) Jews in Babi Yar in 2 (read two)days in 41, those who burnt alive the population a whole village in a church in center France during the allied invasion, who killed my grand father, an artist painter, and my uncle (20 years old, an apprentice locksmith) in extermination camps, the only thought I've is that they can rot in hell where they belong.

What is remarkable is that the sacrifice of the allied soldiers was not for Europe to have a better future it was for mankind to have a future. We'd better remember it today when the forces of evil are raising their ugly heads again.
 
MudMarine said:
Guess I'm a thankful type of person; I start each day with a remembrance prayer. I give thanks for the day and my liberty provided for me because veterans died defending our nation. I don't think one day goes by I don't think of my friends who died.........:USA-flag:
Click to expand...

Thanks Mud. Me neither..

Pam Brooker
54th signal battalion tdy permiter defence force
Nha Trang, Viet Nam 69 - 70
 
Changing the subject slightly

I remember the fallen everyday, I'm fouth generation serviceman both grandfathers died during the second world war and I'm thankful for what each and every serviceman before me has done for the free world.


Still on the matter of remembering, this was in the British papers 2nd June,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-445979/Teachers-drop-Holocaust-avoid-offending-Muslims.html

What will they not teach in schools next? English because it's not the first language of the immigrants flocking to our shores?
 
Having visited Normandy in 1998 and standing on all five beaches, the trip changed my life. The experience was just about the most emotional thing that has ever happened to me. I also visited most of the cemeteries in the area including the American Memorial and Cemetery at Omaha Beach, La Cambe and Bayeux. Knowing all these young men died for what they believed is an inspiration for our leaders to make it possible to live in peace. I memtioned La Cambe which is a German cemetery. At least when I was there, the cemetery is maintained by busing German youth there to help maintain the area. They also have an entry area that honors those buried there on a rotational basis. I recommend any and everyone see the memorials in France if at all possible.
 
bruce448 said:
I remember the fallen everyday, I'm fouth generation serviceman both grandfathers died during the second world war and I'm thankful for what each and every serviceman before me has done for the free world.


Still on the matter of remembering, this was in the British papers 2nd June,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-445979/Teachers-drop-Holocaust-avoid-offending-Muslims.html

What will they not teach in schools next? English because it's not the first language of the immigrants flocking to our shores?
Click to expand...

I see things happening now that will lead to the same outcome, especially if we continue this course. History repeats itself when we as humans forget the past.
 
stovall said:
Having visited Normandy in 1998 and standing on all five beaches, the trip changed my life. The experience was just about the most emotional thing that has ever happened to me. I also visited most of the cemeteries in the area including the American Memorial and Cemetery at Omaha Beach, La Cambe and Bayeux. Knowing all these young men died for what they believed is an inspiration for our leaders to make it possible to live in peace. I memtioned La Cambe which is a German cemetery. At least when I was there, the cemetery is maintained by busing German youth there to help maintain the area. They also have an entry area that honors those buried there on a rotational basis. I recommend any and everyone see the memorials in France if at all possible.
Click to expand...
Tom,
My wife & I were also in Normandy in September 2001. We also walked among the graves in the American Memorial and Cemetery at Omaha Beach. As with you , this was an extremely moving experience. Walking on the beach at Omaha, looking up the hill towards the resting place of all of those young souls and trying to imagine what that day must have been like.

We also visited Point Hoch(sp) were the rangers made landfall for the first time..So moving....

We finished our trip to France and arrived home on September 10th, 2001...Who knew
 
Normandy Pictures

Pictures in Normandy:( Left to right top to bottom)

1,2,3,-Pointe du Hoc where the Rangers landed ,the cliffs they had to scale and whats left of a German Bunker. Bomb craters all over!

4,5- The Graveyard at Omaha Beach

6- Remaining cassions that were assembled from the beach out to the ships,as I remember several miles out!-concrete and steel.Used after the invasion to bring troops,supplies,etc. You can see several in the distance

7- Walking out to the beach at Omaha. Cold September morning.

Just would like to share....
 
Papab asked me to post a couple of pictures of my trip to Normandy so here goes.

The first in of the statue at the Memorial and Cemetery at Omaha Beach.

The second is looking at the Memorial from the Chapel.

The third is looking at the Chapel from the Memorial

The fourth is looking down Omaha Beach Easy Red Sector.

The last is of a casemate just off exit three from Omaha (East of the cemetery)
 
dominique said:
For those who served the German war machine, who killed millions of civilians in Europe in terrorist actions like shooting 40 000 (read forty thousand) Jews in Babi Yar in 2 (read two)days in 41, those who burnt alive the population a whole village in a church in center France during the allied invasion, who killed my grand father, an artist painter, and my uncle (20 years old, an apprentice locksmith) in extermination camps, the only thought I've is that they can rot in hell where they belong.
Click to expand...

While I agree when it comes to those who were responsible for Lidice, Babi Yar and probably hundreds of other less known massacres, I have to strongly criticize the "those who served in the German war machine" part.

Only a small part of the people serving in the german armed forces were sharing the Nazi ideology, most of them were brothers, fathers, sons, lovers, fiancees, buddys, etc...normal, regular, people who were unlucky enough to be of the right age and health at the wrong time.

I would be way more insulted if any of my grandfathers had actually served in the armed forces, but one was in the fire brigade at that time and thus didn't have to see the horrors of war.
The other one was almost wasted against the advancing russians in the Volkssturm, but got rescued and hidden in a cellar by his mother.

So all I can say is: If you want to blame someone, blame the ones resplonsible and not everyone.
 
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