Operation Overlord

...to go in right behind..

SuperDude: "The courage these women had to in right behind the troops to patch the wounded.

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.

A great read is "June 6, 1944," by Stephen Ambrose. He also wrote "Band of Brothers" and "Citizen Soldiers." Peter Lawford's brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy gave full White House and Department of Defense support to the production of the movie, "The Longest Day." Just about every leading man in Hollywood was in the movie. TCM posted last month that Darryl F. Zanuck wanted General and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower to play himself in the movie, but by 1964 he looked a little too old for the part. A close look-a-like for Ike, a custodian at the studio, was drafted for the part, which required very few lines.

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.

The Allies were, in general, a conscript army. If America started conscripting it's male youth to fight, I suspect there would be plenty of women (and non-draftees) lining up to fight beside them, patch them up, whatever.

That said I also suspect there would be a lot more objectors and dodgers than there were in the 40's.

SuperDude, that's very interesting about the landing craft. "You can either build these boats here in New Orleans or ride them in a beach assault carrying a rifle." My father didn't have a choice. He rode them to the beach.

Last footnote. In late May of 1944, the New York Herald-Tribune crossword puzzle had answers to clues that got the attention of Army intelligence and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to today's CIA. The puzzle answers included the words "Overlord," "Sword," "Utah," amd "Omaha." We now know that the invasion mission was Operation Overlord. The beach landing points in Normandy were code named Juno, Sword, Gold, Utah and Omaha.

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.

Some of you guys are getting really old. Next thing you know you'll be complaining about the dang music the youngsters listen to these days, not least of its problems being that it's just too dang loud!

"That said I also suspect there would be a lot more objectors and dodgers than there were in the 40's."

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.

From what I've read the Selective Service Stations were swamped, with lines around the block in some places. Not 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 was II. It gets touched on in the book (if you haven't read it, then you should) the Don is not impressed with the members of his organization who accept their fate out of loyalty to an America that "has been good to them".

Nice (off) topic. We have a lot of insightful, intelligent people on this board. It's good to demonstrate that without some of the goofy - and might I add somewhat shopworn - shenanigans.

Thanks, SuperDude. You made me aware of my egregious misspelling of Eisenhower's name in my posts in another thread.

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.

In case you guys forgot weve been fighting a war on terrorism for a while, and there are plenty of men and women willing to lay thier lives down for God and Country. Luckily the new style of warfare doest need as many bodies. So a few brave souls will be able to protect the rest of us. The problem wouldnt be finding people willing to fight, it would be people willing to fight for whoever is in power at the time. Most of us military folks or ex military folks dont have any trust or confidence in our civilian leadership, and in some cases higher end military leadership. They use us as pawns in thier political chess game. The result is often job loss, benefit loss or even worse lives lost for political gain.

If any of you have invested the time and money to get deeply involved in the lives of the strippers we desire, I'll bet you've seen what I have: self centered greed, totally oblivious of world affairs and history, and no interest beyond the immediate. Right in the middle of a blowjob I had a stripper answer her cell phone, argue with another stripper about whether she got short changed in her transaction that morning where she bartered $150 in Food stamps for $80. Worth of crack. I later asked her if she was concerned about the mis-use of government assistance and she looked at me like I was nuts. She has no clue as to how the food assistance gets out of my pocket (in taxes & into hers. She doesn't know what Pearl Harbor is, no idea about Normandy, and just doesn't know. Admittedly, she's not a good barometer of her generation, but I find it amazing how little she and many others really know w

The millennials are ripe for the picking I fear...

Hmm...!!??

Hmm...

Going all the way back to the first post: I believe we'd still have it if a worthy challenge arose.

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.

The US has the opposite problem, too ready to spend young lives. There are a lot of controversial things about D-Day that have never been fully investigated. Like US Navy commanders who may have acted with cowardice in launching tank-bearing landing craft too far from shore, causing them to get swamped and to sink. And the failure of the US Army to equip its tanks with rotating bars in front with short chains attached to cut the barb wire lining the beaches. In spite of repeated demonstrations from the British of the effectiveness of this modification.

ibbaicnl--The aerial recon photos were taken a noon. The shadow triangulation, using basic geometry and trigonmentry, showed the hedgerows to be about 3 feet high, easily crushable by advancing tanks. If the photographs had been retaken later in the day the measurements of the shadows would have revealed that the hedgerows were actually over 6 feet tall backed by ditches, enough to slow down the tanks. Thus, the hedgerow campaign, a slow and painful effort to punch through the years old and tough over 6 feet tall hedges that were the boundary lines for French farms in Normandy. They had been growing there since the 11th century.

Now back to naked women.