Honor and Sacrifice
Posted by Keith_Indy on 06 Jun 2007 at 1:10 pm | Tagged as: Military Matters, Keith's Page, History
is the 63rd anniversary of the D-Day landings.
I can’t image what it was like. I’m sure the opening scenes of “Saving Private Ryan” comes as close as any film can. I remember seeing WWII vets at the theater, some of them, like me, with tears in their eyes. The sacrifice to many men made, and continue to make, to defeat evil is the most heart wrenching thing to me. Wish that we were civilized enough to be past the need for such sacrifices, but “All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.”
The following is only one citation of a Medal of Honor recipient from the D-Day Landings. These are the values we should all aspire to, and for which we should remember on Memorial and Veterans days.
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/reference/normandy/Nor-MOH.htm
BARRETT, CARLTON W.
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Army, 18th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. Place and date: Near St. Laurent-sur-Mer, France, 6 June 1944. Entered service at: Albany, N.Y. Birth: Fulton, N.Y. G.O. No.: 78, 2 October 1944.
Citation: For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, in the vicinity of St. Laurent-sur-Mer, France. On the morning of D-day Pvt. Barrett, landing in the face of extremely heavy enemy fire, was forced to wade ashore through neck-deep water. Disregarding the personal danger, he returned to the surf again and again to assist his floundering comrades and save them from drowning. Refusing to remain pinned down by the intense barrage of small-arms and mortar fire poured at the landing points, Pvt. Barrett, working with fierce determination, saved many lives by carrying casualties to an evacuation boat Iying offshore. In addition to his assigned mission as guide, he carried dispatches the length of the fire-swept beach; he assisted the wounded; he calmed the shocked; he arose as a leader in the stress of the occasion. His coolness and his dauntless daring courage while constantly risking his life during a period of many hours had an inestimable effect on his comrades and is in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.
Finally, if you are ever in New Orleans (or N’Awlins as they tend to pronounce it,) I can recommend the National D-Day Museum as a stop worth taking.
Dale Franks over at QandO has more…
A brief history of D-Day from the National D-Day Museum…
On the eve of June 5, 1944, 175,000 men, a fleet of 5,000 ships and landing craft, 50,000 vehicles, and 11,000 planes sat in southern England. In the early morning darkness of June 6, thousands of Allied paratroopers and glider troops landed silently behind enemy lines, securing key roads and bridges on the flanks of the invasion zone. As dawn lit the Normandy coastline the Allies began their amphibious landings, traveling to the beaches in small landing craft lowered from the decks of larger ships anchored in the Channel. They assaulted five beaches, code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. The bloodiest fighting occurred at Omaha, where the Americans suffered more than 2,000 casualties. By nightfall nearly all the Allied soldiers were ashore at a cost of 10,000 American, British, and Canadian casualties. Hitler’s vaunted Atlantic Wall had been breached in less than one day. The beaches were secure, but it would take many weeks before the Allies could fight their way out of the heavily defended Normandy countryside and almost a full year to reach and defeat Germany in the spring of 1945.
6 Responses to “Honor and Sacrifice”
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It was me, not McQ, who wrote the D-Day Post.
Also, the quoted text below the link isn’t something I wrote.
I’ll fix it for Keith, Dale. I think Keith is still trying to rebuild Mr. Chopped Livers confidence after he got slighted by The Richmond Democrat.
Corrected…
Sorry about that… Used to seeing McQ post about most things military… and I really shouldn’t post from work. Never have the time to do it right in the first couple of iterations. I don’t know how some people do it.
He beat me to it.
Not sure about that. “The Longest Day” did a great job.
My favorite line in that movie is by Major Pluskat, manning a post at the beach when the invasion begins: “You know those five thousand ships you say the Allies haven’t got? Well, they’ve got them!”