have we forgotten?

[oldngray]

We visited the memorial on Oahu years ago and it's a sobering experience.

I went there when I was little and I lived in Hawaii just after the memorial opened.

 

[bleedinbrown58]

Both of my grandfathers fought in Europe in WWII. One of them jokes about storming the beaches at Normandy. On the ninth of June...three days after the first waves, when the beaches were pretty well secured. Still pretty cool. Those guys were way tougher than about any of us these days.

My grandfather fought in Europe in WWII...later became a Brookyn cop. After he retired from the police dept...he took a security job at a nearby university for another 10 years to get a second pension. 25 years on the force, he only drew his gun twice. As a security guard, he was shot by a burglar breaking into the dorms one night. He recovered, but the irony of it was never lost on him. He's 90...and still a tough old bastard...lol

 

[UPSJedi2112]

My father fought in the Battle of the Bulge (artillery).

My step-father, a Marine, was in the seventh wave on the first day at Iwo Jima.

My wife's father was in the Navy as a radio operator in the Pacific.

Her step-father was in the Coast Guard on a destroyer escort in both theaters.


None of the four ever really talked about their experiences, yet they are all heros to me.

Those guys are ABSOLUTE heroes. The battle of the bulge was freaking brutal. Iwo was a Marine meat grinder, and a destroyer in the pacific was not a fun place to be with all the much bigger ships steaming around. Salute to them.