Operation Overlord
SuperDude
Detroit, Michigan
June 6, 1944, the Allied invasion of Europe. The war could be shortened by a massive invasion of France and a push into Germany. A lot of people gave a lot to get it done. I have talked to people who were in it. To a person they said it was the defining moment of their young lives, risking everything to stop Adolph Hitler. I met a woman on an airplane many years ago who wrote a book about her exeriences as the head nurse, training her girls to go ashore on D-Day plus one. The courage these women had to in right behind the troops to patch the wounded.
Do we still have it?
Do we still have it?
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20 comments
Do we still have it?"
It's a good question. Maybe tomorrow we won't, but my belief is that generations rise up to the challenges put before them. What are the odds that we just happened to have the what are now considered the best president at the time the country needed them the most? Gen Xers and Millenials are going to have some mighty interesting challenges, IMO, and I think they will rise to meet them. Sometimes you need to be pushed to find what is truly inside of you.
Andrew Jackson Higgins of New Orleans, LA built the landing craft. Eisenhower told Ambrose, "Higgins won the war for us." Those flat bottom high speed boats with the drop gate made the invasion possible. (See the opening of "Saving Private Ryan" starring Tom Hanks.) The Higgins factory work force was racially integrated, with all workers getting the same pay, hours and benefits. When some of the White workers protested that the were being paid the same, not more, than Black workers, Higgins told them that a war against proponents of racial superiority shouldn't be fought by defending racial superiority in war production. When some said they would quit rather than work alongside or accept the same pay as Blacks, Higgins told them that under the law he was required to inform the draft board that they were no longer eligible for deferments as employees in an "essential industry."
"You can either build these boats here in New Orleans or ride them in a beach assault carrying a rifle." End of protest.
The entrance to the D-Day museum in New Orleans is walk through a Higgins landing craft (LST) and the ramp into the building is the flap on the front of the boat. Higgins filed for bankruptcy after the war since there was no longer a demand for his product.
Walter Cronkite interviewed Gen. Eisenhower for CBS News on a program titled "D-Day plus 20 years." It was broadcast in 1964.
That said I also suspect there would be a lot more objectors and dodgers than there were in the 40's.
How the hell did the name of the operation and three of the landing points show up in a newspaper crossword puzzle. The crossword puzzle writer was not able to convice the agents who visited him that this was just a coincidence. He was detained in a hotel for a numbe of days until the Army and OSS were satisfied that he knew nothing of the invasion and could not have been leaking information through the crossword puzzle. Wonder how he would fare today.
Enough history. Back to today's women.
I'm envisioning a scenario in which there's a draft against an enemy that is an actual threat, Vietnam was not an actual threat in my book.
I'd like to see numbers comparing people who enlisted after Pearl Harbor to enlistments after 9/11.
Remember the flashback scene in "Godfather" (was it I or II?) when Michael Corleone reveals that he enlisted because of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Sonny jumps on him for "spoiling Pop's birthday." He refers to enlistees as "saps" for laying down their lives for strangers. Michael responds that some feel that they are ready to lay down their lives for their country. Sonny's rejoinder is "Your country is not your blood. Don't forget that." Michael comes home a decorated U.S. Marine.
I think that there would be no worry about the population of your country stepping up for duty in any genuine crisis. Almost every military venture of USA since WWII has had nothing to do with national self-interest and everything to do with politics.
Politics is an area where honest disagreements will always occur.
Hmm...
Of course we now have a society that would first question whether the challenge IS worthy rather than just accept Word From Above that it is. Which is not such a bad thing.
And there always have been segments of the population that are disconnected from what's happening and how the world goes and not even trying to do anything useful with their lives. But because people tend to only write or make movies about those who actually did something with their lives it looks to us as if it's only in our day that we have the others.