No one cares this is the anniversary?

Albert,

Thank you for this thread, which I have come across somewhat belatedly.

My great-uncle (mother's side) was in the British Navy and captained a landing vessel on D-Day, among other things during WWII. He wrote a book about his experiences a few years ago and, although it does not touch upon the emotional side of things as much, one does get a sense of the immense physical and mental stresses that servicepeople endured, no matter their rank or role. He also tells of how, in some cases, supplies and equipment were cobbled together during the first couple of years of WWII in the almost impossible defence against the (initially) technologically superior Nazi war machine.

My mom lived on the South coast of England, along with most of her family, near a Royal Navy base. She was born in '39 and remembers (!) spending many a night under the family's steel-reinforced dining room table during the Blitz in '41-42 (not sure, but I think that's right). Her grandfather, a mason in the local quarry, ran into a neighbour's burning house one night and saved their children. Just wanted to add a note concerning the heroes who did not serve in the forces.

Regards.

Max

Reagan is at the top of every valedictory poll I have seen, or at least tied. I even Lexis-Nexis'd this at work to make sure. But, I have had this discussion before and its pointless.

I digress, I am so proud of the Americans who fought and died to Liberate Europe. Truely, they are "heroes" and I will never forget that.

Distortion,
No question about it. We can only guess at the life we would have had without their courage. And I pray that another 53 million people don't have to die in order to settle a world scale dispute.

I always think about D-Day on June 6th every year and the soldiers who lost their life that day back in 1944. I'm reading a book called "Flags of our Fathers" about the famous picture taken by Joe Rosenthal of the Marines raising the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. Almost 7000 Marines were killed with over 19,000 wounded. Of the 22,000 Japanese only about 1000 survived.

I just heard recently although I'm not sure where, or how accurate it was, that 52,000 allied soldiers died storming the beach on D-day.

I don't care if those soldiers are republican, democrats, or communists, my hat is off to them. Not to mention those who continued the struggle and provided freedom for people that they did not know.