Nothing Prepares You for
Visiting Omaha Beach
Atlantic,
by
Rachel Donadio
Original Article
Posted By: StormCnter,
6/2/2019 6:48:34 AM
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France—The first thing you notice, at the end of the narrow roads that lead to this precipice, is how peaceful this place is. The cliffs are thick with rough green vegetation and drop down—sharply, then more gradually—to a Prussian-blue sea and a windswept beach. Omaha Beach.
The morning I went, the sun was bright, and a few people were walking on the sand with a dog. I could see them from a lookout on the pathway to the Normandy American Cemetery here, where more than 9,300 servicemen and a few servicewomen are buried—neat rows of milk-white marble crosses, 150 Stars of David, and 307 graves
Reply 1 - Posted by:
InvestiGator 6/2/2019 7:14:09 AM (No. 88949)
Dad was a D-D veteran. Been fortunate to visit Omaha Beach twice. The author’s gratuitous insertions of dislike for Trump ruin this promising piece.
31 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
pros7767 6/2/2019 7:24:47 AM (No. 88951)
Completely agree with #1.
In answer to the author's question at the end of the piece, I suspect that those alive are horrified that their sacrifices have been squandered over the years. They no longer recognize the country they grew up in and fought for. Those not here, are turning over in their graves, horrified that our country no longer respects what history has taught us.
Make sure your children and grandchildren know the truth.
23 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Lawsy0 6/2/2019 8:13:31 AM (No. 88976)
My WWII vet landed at Le Havre in January 1944, and went straight to the Ruhr region. Later years, he said he couldn't find the right response to people who thanked him for his service until a great nephew of General Patton thanked him when they met at a restaurant. That brought it full circle for him, since he had served in the Third Army (Patton's group). Thank you God for America's Greatest Generation.
6 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
jjs 6/2/2019 8:26:13 AM (No. 88979)
I lived in England in the early 90's and flew a small Cessna 152 over the beeches, took the same rout as the invasion. To this day I will not forget seeing the pill boxes above the beach heads, landing crafts still visible under water and the cliffs.
We only won the battle, the fight is still going on against these people who want to destroy us and take our power away so we cannot live free. These are the facts Trump is exposing and the elites and globalist can't stand him for it.
16 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Rivetjoint 6/2/2019 8:47:16 AM (No. 88992)
I quite agree with Number 1 that the author's snarky, unnecessary comments about President Trump detract from the article.
12 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
earlybird 6/2/2019 9:47:11 AM (No. 89040)
Nor does anything prepare you for the sea of white crosses, as far as our eyes could see, the furthest outer reaches masked by the fog that is typical in early June.
The first time we were there just one day shy of the D-Day anniversary. The sound of the channel lapping at the bottom of the nearby cliffs, also masked by the fog.. The video and sound are in my mind forever. On another visit years later I took my birthday rose and laid it on one of the markers…
It is a holy place.
7 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 6/2/2019 9:51:22 AM (No. 89044)
My dad did not make landfall at Omaha Beach. He had to settle for the Battle of the Bulge as a rifleman in the US Army. He somehow survived this hell.
We must keep in mind now that those men who fought in WWII are in their 90s now and are dying out. In just 5 years, most of them will be gone and will not be here anymore to tell the true stories of this horrific battle. We must take it upon ourselves to preserve this history with our children and our children's children.
Ok, Rachel. As a liberal Yale grad, the few snarky Trump bits muddied your piece. You voted for Billary?
5 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
DVC 6/2/2019 10:31:25 AM (No. 89073)
Gotta say nice things about BillyJeff, while not mentioning that he never served - and then say rude
things about Trump while prominently mentioning that he never served. I really don't like Atlantic.
This is a reasonably good piece. Go and see it. Hire a local tour guide and see some of the battle
sites, or study the invasion thoroughly yourself and guide yourself. A lot of heroes fought there,
and many died there. And Omaha was the hardest beach by far to win.
I have been reading Churchill's excellent, but quite long, "History of the Second World War" at 6 book
set. Normandy took unimaginably complex planning, and conceiving and building in huge quantities a
class of ships that had never before existed, the Landing Ship, Tank (LST). The Brits came up with
it, and it was Churchill's concept, and American shipyards turned them out by the hundreds and hundreds.
Without them, the landings in the Pacific would have not been possible, either.
Great deeds by great men, leaders and ordinary soldiers alike.
Go and see it if you can. And don't miss the tiny church at Angoville-au-Plain where two conscientious
objector paratrooper medics (imagine the concept!) set up a field hospital, and tended American and
German wounded, alike as the ground changed hands several times over several days. Amazing
story of heroes without guns, too.
4 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
red1066 6/2/2019 11:22:19 AM (No. 89126)
Trump's contempt for McCain has nothing to do with McCain's POW status, but with how McCain acted as a member of Congress, and toward Trump himself. I believe McCain acted has he did much of the time because he felt he had protection anyone because he was a POW. McCain actions were just the opposite of most WWII vets, most of whom came home and went to work and didn't talk about what they had gone through because millions of others had gone through the same thing.
2 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
GO3 6/2/2019 11:44:19 AM (No. 89145)
I agree about the anti-Trump snark, which is why I recommend this article from the Atlantic in 1960 by S.L.A. Marshall entitled the First Wave at Omaha Beach.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1960/11/first-wave-at-omaha-beach/303365/
Omaha Beach was won by GIs who made it inland literally in dribs and drabs. In some cases they surprised the Germans who had received reports that the landings were defeated at the beach and had no idea Americans had moved inland.
0 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
clipped wings 6/2/2019 12:32:29 PM (No. 89174)
As a young Special Forces Lieutenant, I was privileged to know two fine NCOs who were a part of the D-Day invasion. One of them parachuted into St. Mere Eglise with the 101st Airborne Division, the other went into Normandy by a glider with the 82nd Airborne Division.
I have the greatest respect for all the men who made that assault, no matter how they arrived to engage the Nazis.
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Geoman 6/2/2019 1:07:03 PM (No. 89191)
Despite Obama's constant pandering fiction regarding Muslims being woven into the fabric of US history, note the lack of the Muslim crescent on the tombstones of the US war dead.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
bighambone 6/2/2019 2:24:44 PM (No. 89233)
It is not appropriate to use the history of the D Day landings to sneak in a political hit job against President Trump.
1 person likes this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
j9zig2009 6/2/2019 2:33:45 PM (No. 89238)
My uncle is 96, pilot in WWII & Korea, a few aunts also in their 90's...all 100% support Presdent Trump. So did my Mom, who ied at 89, but died before general election. If the author wondered what WWII vets might think of the divisions in US & Europe, she could have asked a few. Though she likely would not like their answers. As my aunt said, re: our culture of accepting evil like abortion, pornography, unmarried parents, abuse, lawlessness - "I don't think the good Lord is goimg to put up with this much longer."
2 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
NorthernDog 6/2/2019 2:36:14 PM (No. 89240)
FYI - the film The Longest Day will be shown on TCM movie channel this Thursday, 6/6.
0 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
bighambone 6/2/2019 2:49:48 PM (No. 89250)
During the 1960’s when in the US Army I was privileged to meet a lot of older NCOs who fought in the Second World War. At the time I was a really young guy and always tried to get along with them. While stationed in the USA, I received orders to transfer to a battalion in West Germany. One of the older NCOs looked at my orders and said I have a friend in that battalion who is a First Sergeant. When I got to Germany and to my new unit it was customary to report to the battalion Sergeant Major’s office. When I reported in, the Sergeant Major told me that one of the First Sergeants asked that I be assigned to his company. That happened. After I was there for awhile the First Sergeant told me that he had received a letter from his old friend in the States who told him that I was being reassigned to the battalion and that’s what caused me to be assigned to my current company.
Several months later that First Sergeant and I were on temporary duty in Holland for awhile. When there I asked him where we first met our mutual friend in the States who had wrote to him. he said that he first met him in England in 1943, and that they were in an infantry unit of the 1st US Infantry Division and that they had landed on Omaha Beach, Normandy, together on June 6, 1944, and fought through France and Germany together until the war in Europe ended. After the war they both remained in the Army.
.
2 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
RenoVet68 6/2/2019 2:50:30 PM (No. 89251)
Seven uncles fought for my Freedom during WWII. God bless them and may God Bless the Greatest Generation!
3 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 6/2/2019 3:33:09 PM (No. 89288)
That was Ronald Reagan's finest moment. I remember watching that speech on TV and was brought to tears. I am so honored to have been able to live when Reagan was our President.
In stark contrast, I'm so disgusted to have had to suffer under 8 years of the Kenyan's crime riddled, Chicago-politics administration from hell.
3 people like this.
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