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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBeschloss tweet; King George VI implores Churchill to NOT join the forces in Overlord
Link to tweet
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FakeNoose
(32,356 posts)Thanks for posting, and thanks to Michael Beschloss for all of his enlightening and interesting info. I try to memorialize D-Day by watching the movie "Saving Private Ryan" every year on June 6th. Another good one is "The Longest Day" which I also watch from time to time. It's my way of avoiding bone spurs.
hlthe2b
(101,730 posts)I had uncles too who served in Pacific theater and do, on occasion re-watch Band of Brother's companion series, The Pacific.
I'm not a tremendous war movie buff, but I just feel like we should not forget. Schindler's List is one I have much more difficulty re-watching. Just the theme music makes me cry...
irisblue
(32,829 posts)Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)...but, due to his adversarial relationship with Wilson, he was denied.
However, as TR was a proponent of US involvement in the war, I wonder if he re-thought his position when his youngest son, Quentin, was killed in an aerial battle over France on July 14, 1918. It crushed TR, and hastened his own death less than 6 months later. Sons TR Jr, Kermit and Archie were also wounded in the war.
irisblue
(32,829 posts)Into all the Service Branches is remarkable.
The ApricotHellbeast and his familys' lack of military service should sting more in MAGAville.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)to get himself accepted into the military in spite of terrible eyesight, although that was long before he became president. I read that when he was sent to Europe as an artillery captain (?) he took something like a dozen pair of eyeglasses with him as spares.
I have to doubt TR's son's death caused him to "re-" think such an enormous decision. That would have made him a very unthinking, and perhaps dreadfully callous, sort of person, the kind who can only understand and care about what happens to him. And he did turn out to be right that neutrality would fail.
Johnyawl
(3,205 posts)...Elliott petitioned and signed a waiver for his disability, which allowed him to receive a commission in the Army Air Force, (he was an experienced private pilot and photographer). He became commander of the 325th Photographic Reconnaissance Wing who's operations played an important role in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, June 6, 1944 and later for the Battle of the Bulge in 1945. Elliott Roosevelt flew over 300 combat missions (in mostly unarmed reconnaissance aircraft), was wounded twice and received the Distinguished Flying Cross. He is credited with pioneering new techniques in night photography and weather data gathering.
All four of FDR's sons served in combat during WWII, the oldest as the XO of Carlson's Raiders during the battle of Guadalcanal. (If you don't know who Carlson's Raiders are, look them up and be prepared to be impressed.)
Fuck Cadet Bone Spurs and his useless sons.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)about Elliott Roosevelt. How ironic that with vision disability he contributed to the gathering of a great deal of visual information.
And so agree with that last. Also deserter George W. Bush and the millions who cheer the swiftboating of John Kerry and other genuine heroes for political reasons.
Johnyawl
(3,205 posts)In the '70s and '80s I identified as a "moderate independent", and voted for both Democrats and Republicans. The evangelicals and radical republicans (Newt Gingrich) made a Democrat out of me in the '90s. But what they did to Max Cleland in 2002 and John Kerry in 2004 created in me a burning, white hot hatred of republicans. Even now, old and infirm that I am, I don't know that I could resist beating Karl Rove into a bloody pulp if I was to ever meet him.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)who's coming to Atlanta today for events tomorrow. I haven't read that Senator Cleland will be out, but he still pops up in the news occasionally.
October 11, 2018
Join Max Cleland and demand that Brian Kemp resign now. Sign our petition: https://www.change.org/p/secretary-of-state-brian-kemp-dema
"When I decided to run for higher office, I stepped down from my position as Secretary of State because I recognized that it would not be fair to Georgia voters if I oversaw an election in which I was a candidate for higher office. It is time for Brian Kemp to do the same. From his purging of 1.4 million voters, to the closure of 214 polling locations on his watch, and now, the 53,000 mostly African-American voters whose registrations hang in limbo, Brian Kemp has shown that he is willing to subvert democracy in order to win an election. He must immediately resign his position and Governor Deal must designate a competent bureaucrat who will protect every eligible Georgians right to vote."
--Former U.S. Senator and Georgia Secretary of State Max Cleland
The same for Rove and Gingrich. Absolutely. They should both be finishing up long prison terms.
Boomerproud
(7,889 posts)was in the plane following Joe Kennedy Jr. when it exploded.
Johnyawl
(3,205 posts)...but then my google skills are pretty rudimentary.
The story rings true given the mission Kennedy was on, and the need of that mission for an intelligence officer with ace aero reconnaissance skills.
Victor_c3
(3,557 posts)A leader owes it to their men to endure the same hardships he orders them to endure. This says a lot about his character.
Roy Rolling
(6,856 posts)He didn't have bone spurs.
Marcuse
(7,399 posts)AJT
(5,240 posts)"The price to be paid in taking Gallipoli would no doubt be heavy, he wrote, but there would be no more war with Turkey. A good army of 50,000 and sea-powerthat is the end of the Turkish menace"
Winston Churchill
eppur_se_muova
(36,227 posts)The Turks had days to dig in and set up strong defenses while the Allied landings were postponed. Allies finally landed in the obviously intended location, with no element of surprise whatever. Lots of blame to go around.
Johnyawl
(3,205 posts)...but as First Lord of the Admiralty he embraced it and promoted it. And the stench from that debacle followed him throughout his life.
But here's what I admire about the man. Gallipoli was such a disaster that it brought down the government, and the new government demoted Churchill. He resigned in November 1915 and headed to the front lines in France as an infantry officer with the Royal Scots Fusiliers. He would serve in that capacity for 2 years.
I saw the movie "Gallipoli" when it came out in '81. I don't think I'll ever be able to watch it again.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)the commanders of the land and sea battles. Churchill argued for opening a second front and owns his mistakes, but he wasn't personally responsible for all the failures in its prosecution.
cab67
(2,963 posts)He was an unrepentant imperialist who opposed independence for India.
The reason his warnings about Hitler went unheeded was because he'd been wrong so many times before.
Wounded Bear
(58,440 posts)but he was also someone who understood the value of a photo-op, before there was such a term.
The time for leaders to "lead from the front" disappeared in the mid-19th century. The morale value of a general riding his horse along the line got out-weighed by the need to keep the "best and brightest" from getting killed off while grandstanding. Churchill went ashore in Normandy, on Jun 12th, after the Germans had been pushed inland several miles and the danger to him personally was pretty minor.
Churchill did spend much of his tenure as PM travelling around the world, visiting Roosevelt in Wash DC, but also visiting the troops in the various theaters. It was good for morale and such, but he often left the day-to-day running of he civilian government to others throughout the war. Churchill was a great leader and orator, to be sure, but his strategic skills were kind of questionable overall.
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Churchill wanted to go. The King said if Churchill can go, it is safe enough for me to go. Churchill backed down.
Byronic
(504 posts)As he explains in his letter.
He had served in the First World War and fought at the Buttle of Jutland.
Churchill had extensive military experience, of course, seeing action in the Sudan, the trenches of the Western Front, Cuba, and being a POW in South Africa.
Piers Morgan bought Trump a Winston Churchill hat, which he put on for a UK breakfast TV advert. Trump and Churchill. it isn't difficult to tell the two men apart.