D Day 75 year Anniversary.

Acknowledging the righteous acts of others somehow diminishes the importance of mother Russia.
Part of an inferiority complex after losing global influence.

I was born 7 days before Pearl Harbour. So when I was a kid, American soldiers were the best guys on the planet. We knew what anxiety was. It was only years later, when I saw the movie 'A Town Like Alice' that I fully understood what could have happened to us, if the Americans had not arrived. My father was on the guns in western Australia and got bombed there. He once said to me 'The Americans die easily'. That sounds terrible, but they lost thousands while fighting to protect other people. Their officers tended to lead from the front, unlike our officers who stay well back and leave the fighting to the real soldiers - led by sargeants (non-commissioned officers ). Our army is usually totally volunteers. I cannot imagine what it would be like being conscripted to fight in foreign countries to protect other people. And how would you be landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day ? To me it is mind-boggling that any government can have that much control. In Australia, we have compulsory voting, however we rarely conscript for military service. What do soldiers actually fight and die for, if not democracy ?

I was in Normandy last weekend for the 75th Anniversary. What impressed me was the gratefulness of the French. There was a 300 military vehicle 'Liberation' parade over the weekend in villages local to Omaha Beach. The attention to detail was unbelievable. Sherman tanks, Half Tracks, Trucks, Jeeps being driven through the streets in better condition than when they were new. And most were French owned. Its really worth seeing.

The Greatest Generation.

I have been to the cemetery at Coleville sur Mer in Normandy many times. It is never ceases to amaze, to see in person the scale of the loss.
The ABMC administers and maintains it to a very high standard, as well as the many other cemeteries it maintains:
https://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials

Recently, I have come across a French website of WW2 Air Crashes in France.
You can research by aircraft type. I am currently on B17 but you can select many other types, P51, P38, Lancaster, etc.
Just for B17, there are what looks like hundreds of crash listings for France.
It's mostly in French (I am unaware of an equivalent English language version), although some excerpts are in English.
Someone else on here into aviation might find this site interesting:

http://francecrashes39-45.net/rech_avion.php

What really appals me, is that so many thousands of young guys died fighting against authoritarianism, yet there are still people who decry democracy. Both fascism and communism have their roots in the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, in which the individual is subservient to the state. In a democracy the individuals make up the collective which IS the state.

o0norton0o said:

ya know what, both of you can make your point without using "lamestream media" , or "fox news bullshit" in your comments. Both of those comments infect a simple thread with a wider argument that disrespects the simplicity of remembering the bravery and sacrifices made by our dad's and their generation.

Click to expand...

My father fought for democracy. What have we done with it ?