re: Remembering D-Day

Yes it's a great sense of pride to have someone like him as a part of my life and family as I'm sure you know exactly what I mean. On a lighter note they offered him a promotion to brigadier general after the war if he would sign on for another term. Claims he looked them straight in the eyes and said "thanks but I'm going back to louisiana and raise some cows".

To paraphrase Gen Patton: we should not be sad men like that are gone but forever thankful men like that lived.

Truly men of honor and grace. I salute them all.

RIP CJC, RLL

Jim Martin, age 93, will parachute into Normandy tomorrow dressed as he was 70 years ago.

My grandfather was Army, an aide to Gen. Patton. Unfortunately, we never discussed the war much, though he was always proud of his service and was active in the reserves until he died.

His brother, my uncle, was a Navy corpsman in the Pacific. Joined at 16. After the war, the Navy offered him a free ride to Tulane Medical School. He turned it down immediately, said he'd seen enough blood to last for one lifetime. He became an accountant instead. Never discussed the war.

After my grandfather died, we found a box of letters that he and my uncle had written home. I hope we still have them and didn't lose them to Katrina.

I posted this in the Memorial Day thread and thought it deserved to be reposted.....

quote:

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My grandmother told me when I was a kid about her cousin who was killed on D-Day (I'm not sure that it was Omaha beach but I believe it was). She told me that he took a direct hit from a mortar round that literally blew him to pieces. There was not enough of him left to bury and the only reason he was not listed as "MIA" was someone was looking right at him when he was killed. When they informed his mother she went into shock and died herself a few days later. He was her youngest son.

To give folks some perspective of how different of a time and how big of a war WWII was, in June 1944 in addition to her cousin who died on D-Day my grandmother also had 2 brothers in the Pacific with the Navy (1 in the SeaBees the other on a aircraft carrier), three brothers in Europe (2 Army - 1 infantry & 1 engineers) , 1 in the Army Air Corps stationed in England, she also had her fiancee who would later be my grandfather after the war serving as a tanker (yes, I became a tanker to follow in his footsteps) in the 4th Armored division in Europe. That's all five of her brothers as well as the man she'd later marry.

Nowadays most people may only know one person or have one loved one serving. But during WWII it was pretty common for virtually all the able bodied males of a family to be serving. They really were the greatest generation.

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My biological mother kept in contact with her best friend in high school. The friend was married to a country doctor and both lived in a small town in south Alabama. I had occasion to visit his widow several years ago. I was reading some of the memorabilia in his home office and discovered he was a WW2 navy veteran. The interesting part was he was a frogman who helped chart the beaches for the Normandy invasion.

Great post, 91. Great obit about your grandfather. I would have enjoyed conversations with him for sure.

My grandfather survived the long, messy campaign in Anzio, Italy, and never once spoke about it to me.

I was close to my great uncle as a kid, and he had been a Marine in the Pacific, and he never spoke of it all either.

After he died, I was given all of his old Marine paraphernalia, which included a huge photo album of pics that he took while serving. I was speechless, because I had never seen any of it before.

There's was truly the greatest generation, marked by never-ending selflessness, sacrifice, and honor.

RIP and thank you to WW2 vets everywhere.