Normandy landings - Wikipedia
It was a real, real BIG deal.
D - Day + 80 Years: pivotal human history ... lest we forget
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It was a real, real BIG deal.
Shiftless2
Well-known member
I was in Paris for the 50th anniversary of D-day. Have to admit it was quite by accident - a business trip had me taking a red eye and I remember thinking that my fellow passengers were a bit of an odd mix - Sunday night flights are usually full of business people with a smattering of tourists but this time the plane was filling with people who were my parent's age (i.e., late 70's on up).
That said, got to my hotel and crashed for a couple of hours, cleared my emails and wandered downstairs to the lobby prepared to ask for a restaurant recommendation for dinner. Instead I found a lobby that was completely mobbed with the manager of the hotel standing on a table thanking us all for what we (or our parents) had done that day 50 years ago. Interesting speech to say the least and I ended up going to dinner with a group of American geologists who I met there.
That said, got to my hotel and crashed for a couple of hours, cleared my emails and wandered downstairs to the lobby prepared to ask for a restaurant recommendation for dinner. Instead I found a lobby that was completely mobbed with the manager of the hotel standing on a table thanking us all for what we (or our parents) had done that day 50 years ago. Interesting speech to say the least and I ended up going to dinner with a group of American geologists who I met there.
Shiftless2
Well-known member
Red-eye jet-lag, next time you'll do better than a bunch of stoners.
Simple minds don't handle paradox well. Even the educated mind may struggle to connect Wilson's insight on genetic self-promotion with absolute altruism.
The European conquest of North America included genocide. But following the ghastly wholesale carnage the conquerors present a fig leaf of civility, Donald Trump to the contrary notwithstanding.
I've wondered whether Hitler's Third Reich would have followed this model, an ugly purge to "purify" humanity, followed by what by its own standards would have been accepted as enlightened prosperity. Or whether it would have remained a dystopian nightmare for generations?
I puzzle over this.
I suspect it may have been photographed during training, not on D-Day itself.
End P I of II
P II of II
20 : 20 hindsight:
What could have been done, at individual troop level?
Alternate sources indicate each American troop carried 70 lbs of gear. That's hardly an advantage for out-running German machine-gun fire.
Marathon runners "carbo-load", eat spaghetti which prior or during a marathon digestion may convert to sugar to provide energy for the marathon.
Might these troops have benefited from high protein, and fat, which takes longer to digest, and thus delay hunger following first boot on beach?
Of the 70 lbs of gear issued to each troop, how about a few of them leaving 60 lbs of it in the boat, leaving them more agile for a zig-zag sprint from shore to cover?
We owe them all a debt we can never repay.
20 : 20 hindsight:
What could have been done, at individual troop level?
Alternate sources indicate each American troop carried 70 lbs of gear. That's hardly an advantage for out-running German machine-gun fire.
Marathon runners "carbo-load", eat spaghetti which prior or during a marathon digestion may convert to sugar to provide energy for the marathon.
Might these troops have benefited from high protein, and fat, which takes longer to digest, and thus delay hunger following first boot on beach?
Of the 70 lbs of gear issued to each troop, how about a few of them leaving 60 lbs of it in the boat, leaving them more agile for a zig-zag sprint from shore to cover?
We owe them all a debt we can never repay.