73 years ago today June 6th 1944

[Botany]

[dhill926]

1. K & R...

we can never forget....

[Hugin]

2. ...

[Botany]

3. They were the best

[HAB911]

4. K&R

[MoonRiver]

5. It was such an amazing and heroic day in history!

Both my parents served in WWII.

[CanonRay]

6. My high school track coach was at Omaha beach, first wave.

[Grammy23]

7. My husband and I visited the American cemetery in Normandy two years ago.

It was a beautiful, sun filled day with a gentle breeze softly wafting across the headstones. A more solemn and peaceful place you couldn't imagine. I tried to imagine the day in 1944 when the people interred here so bravely fought and died. I admit it was difficult to imagine it while standing in the serenity of that place.

I read where the surviving families had the choice to allow their loved one to be brought home for burial or be buried in France with their fellow soldiers. A surprising number of them elected to have their loved one buried in Normandy. I cannot think of a more fitting place than to be buried with their own countrymen in this lovely place. The hell and suffering they endured felt very far away. It is a sobering reminder to all of us of their sacrifice when you look out across the perfectly aligned headstones. So many, so many young.

I wish the lessons learned from this would transfer across the generations, but alas, they do not seem to do that. There will be more cemeteries, more memorials. Some of us will learn, but the warriors among us won't.

[Botany]

9. Ike learned the lesson.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. [...] Is there no other way the world may live?"

[Grammy23]

10. Yes, you are right. Some of the warriors do get it.

Unfortunately, as they fade away into the sunset of life, they are replaced by other leaders who haven't gotten the message of what we lose by spending our blood and treasure on endless war. And those who have never been in battle, never faced their own mortality, never crouched in a foxhole, never buried their fellow soldiers are the deciders who get us up to our eyeballs in another conflict. Too much time and money spent on the war machine. Not enough time invested in finding peaceful co-existence. 😢

[volstork]

16. THIS

is truth!

[George II]

22. Eisenhower saw war first hand, many of those today have no concept....

...of what it's like to go to war. So it's easier for them to send others' children into battle.

That's one thing I always appreciated about Charles Rangel, HE was on the front lines in Vietnam.

[Delmette2.0]

15. Thank you for the extended quote.

I just sent it to my Senator Steve Daines urging him to vote against Trump's budget. He is a Republican and I doubt he will listen. At least I feel better.

[IronLionZion]

17. Defense contractors and war hawks learned a different lesson

Once they tasted the honey that is money, they wanted more. And since we have all these great weapons, war hawks look for reasons to use them.

Meanwhile other countries invested in schools, healthcare, trains and bridges and other things. And the crazy thing is that most US allies still get protection from the US military in case Russia wants to invade them.

The flip side is that some economists do credit the WW2 war spending and cold war spending as boosting our economy, creating jobs, and creating many scientific innovations: GPS, internet, duct tape, auto-injection syringes, gasoline cans, strategic petroleum reserve, computers, microwaves, jet airplanes, nylon, long term food preservation, and much more.

[bluecollar2]

23. I wish our Party would

Put this quote in today's terms.

E.G.

How many teachers and and nurses could we educate for the cost of one aircraft carrier or fighter plane?

[oasis]

8. 6.6.44. The beginning of the end of the Hitler regime.

Maybe the most important date in world history.

[nini]

11. I always miss my dad and uncles on days like this

They went through hell to stop the madness back then.

They're all spinning in their graves to see that crap going on today

[hamsterjill]

12. Remembering some brave heroes today!!

Thank you for posting.

Thank God for their bravery and courage so many years ago!!!

[FailureToCommunicate]

13. The Greatest Generation during their most brave hours. Too many never

made it off the beaches. Those who did fought on to victory.

[volstork]

14. True heroes in every sense.

"They gave all of their tomorrows so we could have today."

[steve2470]

18. My dad was there with Patton a month later

My dad and I went there in 1989. My dad just looked at the beach from the cliff and was silent.


RIP Dad, love you, thank you for your service, and thank you to all veterans who died, were injured and risked their lives for the freedom of Europe that day.

[lovemydogs]

19. My mother was a girl in France and my grandfather, a police captain,

and member of the resistance, knew when the landing took place. They lived under the Nazi's for several years and were so happy.

Ironically, my daughter was born on this day 39 years ago.

[mfr4]

20. D-Day

Don't forget the Canadians and the Brits who landed on the other 3 beaches that day. My uncle was there on Juno Beach and my cousin is buried at the Canadian cemetery at Reviers.

[Duppers]

21. My dad was there.

Omaha Beach. He was one of the very lucky ones.

[bluecollar2]

24. My Grandfather (mother's father) was in Burma

With the British Army fighting the Japanese on this day...

Dad's father was too old having served in WW 1 so he was in England....I think he was attached to the defense ministry as a construction engineer.

[Donkees]

25. Thank you

[greatauntoftriplets]

26. My father went ashore on Day 6.

Had he been earlier, I probably would not be here.

[DFW]

27. My dad was still in England, shipped over France after the invasion

He was class of 1943, and had to graduate early to get down to Texas for his Basic Training. Then he was sent to England. His ship to France was torpedoed by a German U-Boot in the English channel, but he got off (last man). Later on, he had radio duty at Patton's camp the night Patton was killed in the motorcycle accident, said "all hell broke loose."

After the war was over, there was the logistical nightmare getting all our personnel shipped back to the USA, and the USA asked anyone in Europe willing to house an American GI to please volunteer, which families did all over Europe. One day, my dad's CO came into the tent and asked if anyone liked to sail. No one in his unit was a sailing enthusiast, including my dad, but he had the presence of mind to ask why. The CO said, "well, there's this really rich family on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland......" Before he could finish the sentence, my dad said, "I like to sail!" and he ended up spending his post V-E time as a house guest of one of the richest families in the Geneva area. Good thing for him he had taken French in college. I'm sure it beat the hell out of jumping for his life off some burning, sinking wreck in the middle of the night in the English Channel, not to mention whatever else he went through. Like many soldiers in war, he did not talk much at all about his experience in France--only what went before and after.