Plan B Forum

I stopped at Colville Sur Mer, the American cemetery for the men who died during the Normandy landing, a few weeks ago. It's a tough place to visit but there is a sense of obligation, I had to do it.

It's difficult to imagine today. Most of the conscripts were unsophisticated kids, 18-24 years old, only 1/2 had graduated from High School, and few had ever traveled more than 10 miles from where they were born. And they gave their lives for us. Because they believed in our government, they didn't disparage it and call it the source of all evil, they weren't defeatists who say that everything we do as a country is wrong and stupid. Because they believed in us, that we would make their sacrifice worthwhile, that we would make a fairer world, a world with hope for all who labor honestly that they, or their children, can achieve.

yrs,
rubato

Well said Rubato.

When you visited the place you were standing on American soil that is something that is important.

Because they believed in our government, they didn't disparage it and call it the source of all evil, they weren't defeatists who say that everything we do as a country is wrong and stupid.

Oh good Lord, you could have made a lovely point, but you had to piss on it with your myopic, ignorant, repetitive ideology....

The boys who landed at Utah and Omaha Beach that day didn't make the sacrifices they made for "our government"...

They made those sacrifices for their homes, their families, their country...

And most of all for their buddies who were with them that day when they hit the beach....

"Politics" was the furthest thing from their minds....

My Fellow Americans:

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt - June 6, 1944

Gee whiz, now a days he'd probably be dismissed as a religious fanatic...

Can you imagine a President, informing the country of a major military operation, taking that occasion to lead the nation in prayer?

Scandalous... How disrespectful of the Atheists and Agnostics and Wiccans and other assorted non-praying types he must have been towards to do such a thing...

How insensitive to their self esteem...

Thank God, (well, not God of course, but thank something) we are enlightened enough to live in a country today where this sort of expression of hideously ignorant and hateful religious bigotry would not be tolerated in a political leader...

We're much better off...

The Allied casualties figures for D-Day have generally been estimated at 10,000, including 2500 dead. Broken down by nationality, the usual D-Day casualty figures are approximately 2700 British, 946 Canadians, and 6603 Americans.

However recent painstaking research by the US National D-Day Memorial Foundation has achieved a more accurate - and much higher - figure for the Allied personnel who were killed on D-Day. They have recorded the names of individual Allied personnel killed on 6 June 1944 in Operation Overlord, and so far they have verified 2499 American D-Day fatalities and 1915 from the other Allied nations, a total of 4414 dead (much higher than the traditional figure of 2500 dead).

Further research may mean that these numbers will increase slightly in future. The details of this research will in due course be available on the Foundation's website at http://www.dday.org.

http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/d-day/d-day ... asualities

Nowhere near the 23,000 casualties at Antietam - but then that was Americans fighting Americans - and the (immediate) death rate was much higher on D-Day. There's no telling how many of the Antietam wounded died of their wounds (disease etc) later but a much higher rate than in 1944.

D-Day stands as an iconic moment in time but merely replicated on a grander scale perhaps the many beach landings in the Pacific that claimed so very many Marine, navy, aviator and army lives.

I expect the "reasons" people braved such horror are many and varied - I am thankful that they did.

Meade

Compare and contrast:

On D-Day, the commanders ordered the troops into battle, knowing that many of them would be shot, many would die - surely a number in the thousands. Some were conscripts and some were volunteers.

Today, despite the fact that we have an "all volunteer" military, the philosophy of battle does not generally condone such confrontations. Would any commander in Iraq or Afghanistan send live troops to take an entrenched enemy position, knowing that many of them would not survive the assault?

The casualty figures, when compared with previous wars, including Vietnam, indicate that they would generally not issue such an order. We had 50,000 dead in Vietnam and a couple thousand in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that have actually lasted longer.

Not only are we not sending soldiers knowingly to their deaths, we don't even require anyone to go into military service against their wishes.

The idea that anyone "owes" their country (NOT the fucking GOVERNMENT, by the way) ANYTHING other than the grudging payment of taxes that cannot be avoided or evaded, is gone the way of the dodo.

I am often struck by the irony of President Kennedy's (a Democrat) most famous words: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!"

Can you even imagine any politician making the same suggestion today? The contemporary sentiment is 180 degrees opposed. Indeed, our beloved President and his cronies are determined to perpetuate their power by bringing a clear majority of Americans into some sorts of benefit programs, so that they will perpetually vote for Democrats.

The new Patriotism: Pay your taxes, dammit, so we can spread your money around to others who might benefit from them.

Gag.

Jeez, I wonder what today's Republicans would say if an American President, in a speech at a national cemetery, insinuated that the 3,500+ soldiers of the U.S. Army who died there did so in order "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."






BTW...rubato did *NOT* say or imply, "Because they believed in our government, they sacrificed their lives on the beaches of Normandy.

What he said was, "Because they believed in our government, they didn't disparage it and call it the source of all evil." BIG difference. So take a chill pill, Jim (and Dave), and don't let your own "myopic, ignorant, repetitive ideology" ruin both your reading comprehension and the point of this thread. There are plenty of other things in plenty of other threads where you can (legitimately) pick a fight with rubato....

Well dog me down.

Thanks!

The output of the democratic process, our government, is us. Someone who disparages government generally speaking* in the U.S. is really telling you what they think of themselves. Incompetent, corrupt, lazy, doomed to fail &c. They are losers who are trying to kill the faith and heart in people of courage and ability and ultimately destroy us. They are saying "everyone is corrupt so I can be too".

I feel a sense of obligation at Colville Sur Mer (and other places) because I was born into an extraordinary world because of sacrifices made by a lot of people. Sacrifices. Acts of faith in their countrymen and women.

If government, here, in a democracy, is really always worse than every other form of human organsation then they died uselessly, fools. And I just don't believe that.

yrs,
rubato

* as opposed to moments of pique or particular unfortunate outcomes.

Oh good Lord....

"that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Fixed it for you....

Econo, it's simply not believable to me that you don't understand that that comment was intended as a tribute to our form of government, (ie, representative democracy) versus other forms of government, and not to the idea of government per se...

Come on, that's high school civics stuff....

And Republicans would embrace that concept as much if not more so than some other folks, (afterall it's not the Republicans who like to claim that elections go the way they do because people are too stupid to know what's best for them, so they vote against their own best interests...it is that attitude that really disparages our form of government)

What he said was, "Because they believed in our government, they didn't disparage it and call it the source of all evil."

Which is of course a complete strawman, as no one has ever said anything like "government is the source of all evil"

No one has ever said government is the source of serial killers for example...

Econo, I understand that you have appointed yourself rubato's chief defender and translator here, and that's fine, if you want to take on those thankless tasks, that's your business....

But if you don't see that rubato's purpose in posting what he did, was to poison a thread designed to commemorate a moment in history that all Americans respect with his usual jonny-one-note, narrow-minded ideological provocations, than your RBS must be flaring up big time....

Unfortunately, I know of no "pill" you can take for that....

The fact is there were no "Republicans" or "Democrats" at Normandy that day....

Only Americans. (and of course our foreign allies)

"But if you don't see that rubato's purpose in posting what he did, was to poison a thread"

rubato's post was fair and decent. Those men (and women) were not given to an overall culture of whining about the representative governmental system that is the proud achievement of the USA. They fought, were wounded and died for many reasons, as you said LJ, but among others they fought so that a decent system of government would not be overthrown by totalitarianism. They were not political naifs.

I shall say no more on this

Meade

He poisoned a D-Day tribute thread with a snide divisive comment designed to grind his myopic ideological ax...

Anyone who has read his posts over the years knows this is not unusual, (or certainly should know it) and taking a gratuitous political swipe was his clear intent; he does it all the time. (I suppose if this was the one and only post of his a person had ever read, one could try to interpret it more charitably; but the context of his record makes my conclusion inescapable. Sort of like if you see someone in a store put a piece of merchandise in their pocket you might be able to assume that they were doing so absent minded and innocently...but you wouldn't conclude that after that person had been caught shop lifting 100 times...)

I shall say no more on this

I'm delighted to hear that General; I think that quite wise.

I believe you are over-analyzing rubato's post, Jim, and your dislike for him causes you to look for a deeper negative meaning or for some kind of poke at republicans. There is nothing wrong with what he wrote. It was a thoughtful & positive post in my opinion.

It would not disrupt this thread on its own. It took you to do that.

I believe you are over-analyzing rubato's post, Jim,

Not at all; his intent was instantly clear since he has done it so many times....Given his record, his meaning was obvious at face value; it takes "over analyzing" to interpret it any other way....

This is the guy who once pulled this crap in a Thanksgiving thread....

and in a thread about Miles's dog's death.

I remember that.

I concur with Joe Guy, Meade & Econoline - I wanted to respond immediately but didn't want to call shit onto myself.

rubato's post clearly read (to one not blinded by hatred for him) as a tribute to those who died on the beaches of Normandy.

As a Mayflower descendant whose family has served in the military in every generation and every war prior to the 1990s, I can attest that some were Rs and some were Ds and many fought before those parties existed, but ALL fought to preserve our form of government and government is not some contemptible 'other', it is US.

(LJ, please I beg you kindly, spare me any personal attack for having had the temerity to join in with my opinion and agreeing with others that your anti-rubato sentiments have skewed your perspective here.)

This is so typical, BSG:

First you accuse me of being:

blinded by hatred for him

And then you have the brass balled nerve to ask:

spare me any personal attack

What is it about you that you believe makes you so "special" that you should be able to jump into something that was in no way directed at you, issue personal insults, and then expect none in return?

One set of rules for how BSG is supposed to be able to treat others, and another set for how BSG feels she should be treated....

Sorry, but you're not going to get that from me....

If you don't want shit hurled at you, here's a clue....

Stop hurling it yourself....

The fact is, rube's intent was clear to anyone who isn't suffering from Rubato Blindess Syndrome, which you have proven a number times you have a very advanced case of....

As far as I'm concerned your inability or unwillingness to perceive the obvious as far as he is concerned long ago led me to stop taking anything you had to say about him remotely seriously....

The only thing that had surprised me up to now in this thread was that you didn't come rushing to the poor sweet lad's defense earlier....

I thought that perhaps for once you were going to exercise some sense and restrain your impulse to leap to the defense of the most consistently nasty poster on this board...

But alas, no such luck...

No, you chose to revive this after everyone else had abandoned it, and then had the hubris to think that you would somehow have the right to attack me and expect no response....

Well, I suppose if you think rube is somehow and an innocent victim it's not surprising that you would also be delusional enough think you had a right to attack people without response as well..

Hopefully this post will have an educational affect on you, and completely disabuse you of that bizarre notion.