D-Day!

Thats my Dad on the right trudging through Germany sometime in 1945 with his buddy. He was in college when Pearl Harbor occurred and immediately attempted to join The Marines but was rejected for flat feet (Thanks Dad I inherited them) and then joined the Army in 1942. He was dispatched to England where the invasion of Europe was being planned. He wasn't in D Day itself but soon after moved over to France to fight Nazis for the next year. He was in an Austrian camp in 1945 read to be dispatched to Manchuria to fight the Japanese when the atomic bomb was dropped, ended WW2, and allowed him to come home. My Dad never really talked about the war, only telling us stories of swiping a general's jeep cuz he was tired of walking, taunting German POWs with the old cigarette on a string trick, being told by an Italian POW that "Hitler son of a bitch, Mussolini son of a bitch, Churchill son of a bitch, FDR son of a bitch, Stalin son of a bitch". The Italians are lovers not fighters, I guess. 

Dad told only funny stories not about what he saw. He slipped twice around me. Once when he became angry at a CNN's Pat Buchanan talking about Russian atrocities (remember when the GOP hated Russia?) and praising Americans for being guys who gave chocolate bars to children. He exclaimed to me "Oh bullshit there were plenty of American atrocities" then got up and left the room. He never mentioned it again making me wonder what he saw. The other time was when he refused to go see Saving Private Ryan with me dismissing it as "I already saw it in person no need for me to see it again". My Dad took me to many WW2 movies when I was a kid. The Longest Day, Patton, The Bridge at Remagen and the Big Red One. That last movie seemed to do him in on WW2 movies. It was bloody, it was rough, it was too realistic for him. Who knows why?

The Greatest Generation was silent when it came to talking about the war. Most refused to discuss it. It was just what they did. My Dad refused to join organizations like the American Legion or the VFW because "all they do is sit around talking about the war and it was the worst 4 years of my life so forget it". Nothing was known about PTSD (battle fatigue) back then. Perhaps that was good or perhaps that was tragic. I wonder what my Dad would say about that but I always respected his decision to not talk about it. 

Dad returned to Normandy in 1984 or so for the 40th anniversary. A coworker joked to me when Reagan was speaking and heard some guy holler at Reagan "where were you back in 1944?" if that was your Dad. Hell, it may have been.

Today is the 80th anniversary of D Day. There aren't many veterans who were there left. But all of them, the dead included, were bad ass Americans who deserve all the praise they receive. They were scared to death, yet still rushed those beaches in a suicide mission to stop fascists. My admiration for that generation is endless. Would boomers have done that? No fucking way. I am a boomer and realize what a selfish generation I belong to. We had Vietnam, an illegal and immoral war, and protested it into oblivion. But why? Because it affected us. The danger of being drafted. Let the inner city and rural kids go fight, not us white kids, we are special. Nowadays that same generation will not go away as they embrace selfishness and think they're still so special that only a fascist like Trump can save them from doing their part to make the world better. 

Anyway, I thank my old man and that entire generation of tough sons of bitches, men and women, who did the world a favor by crushing Nazism and Imperial Japanese aggression. 

Too bad they are all going away, and the world is stuck with us.