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Today I will celebrate D-Days 70th birthday. Europe's liberation of the NaZi occupation finally started. With great gratitude and deep respect I will always think of those men and women who were willing to give their lifes for my freedom. As a post-war child it might be fun flying an FSX Me-109 or Zero, but for those B-17 or carrier crews it was a bitter reality. Looking at myself I don't know if I would have the guts they've shown. That's why I say: "thank you, Allies, for all you did !!".

Erik Hertzberger (hertzie).

War is horrific. And there are some people who pushed troops to their deaths and who never faced the consequences of their actions. Sometimes the opposite. Lived lives of respect.

However there are no winners in war. All are losers. Period.

As you said hertzie. Respect for those who died.

From the time I was a small boy, to this very day, I have had great respect for those who stormed ashore in Africa, Asia, and Europe.

To run forward into artillery, mortar and machinegun....

I'll never know if I would have had the courage.



From William Tecumseh Sherman from his address to the graduating class of the Michigan Military Academy 19 June 1879.

"I’ve been where you are now and I know just how you feel. It’s entirely natural that there should beat in the breast of every one of you a hope and desire that some day you can use the skill you have acquired here.
Suppress it! You don’t know the horrible aspects of war. I’ve been through two wars and I know. I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes. I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is Hell!"



From John Stuart Mill

"Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse.

As our forces moved inland, one of my oldest uncles (died in 1989) became a POW for a time; he didn't return to his native New Jersey and his relatives thought for a long while that he'd died in the war.
An Army medic, my dad's (died in 1974) time in Europe came in the invasion of Italy, following campaigns in Africa; my dad's (younger) brother (died day after Christmas, 1985) was fortunate to remain stateside in USAAC administration.
A brother-in-law of my mom was one of the few relatives who saw action in the Navy; I wish I'd asked him more about it before he died of cancer in 2009.
The oldest of my mom's younger brothers was too short to directly lie his way into the Army -- so he finagled his way into the Merchant Marine in 1943... then into the Army; he turned sixteen the year the war ended. One of the coincidentals is that his unit met up with my dad's in North Africa. My last phone conversation with him was within months of his death in June of 2011.
My last mentioned uncle doesn't seem to be one of the few to lie his age but, rather, the many. Of those remaining of the D-Day invasion who were interviewed, many had been underage; many more were still under 20. There are still locals here who took part on that day, one of whom (also underage) took part in outskirting the nazi gunnery positions and lobbing grenades inside. Even these young survivors are closing in on their nineties now.


To those who never made it beyond the beach...
those who never made it home again...
those who have left us in years since...
and to the few who remain...
Thank you.

To those who never made it beyond the beach...
those who never made it home again...
those who have left us in years since...
and to the few who remain...

Well said.