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D-Day, as told by paratroopers

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Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#71

Post by macintux »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #47
montagg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important point. There was a US isolationist strain as strong as it is today. The Man in the High Castle alt history, or The Plot Against America, both involve FDR not being involved for WW2, and that's where the US stands today: at a similar decision point about how it decides to act. The right path is never clear when you're in the valley of the moment.

>> There was a US isolationist strain as strong as it is today As strong as? I don't see much of an isolationist strain in the US today at all. The paleoconservatives are isolationist, but they barely exist any more. The Biden administration appointed a neoconservative as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

The former President reportedly was ready to pull the U.S. from NATO in his second term, and has demonstrated a strong affinity toward the autocrats currently making life miserable for our allies, which has carried over to his entire party.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#72

Post by bell-cot »

rightbyte wrote: post #33
punk-coder wrote: post #28

My grandfather was a medic and was part of the storm of Normandy beach on D-Day. He never really spoke of it and had a stroke and passed away before Saving Private Ryan came out. We wondered what he would have thought of the beginning of that movie, as someone who was there and was running around helping people the whole time.

My take is that Saving Private Ryan is "pro-war" movie like most Hollywood productions on the topic and not about 2WW really. The give away is how the save Ryan squad seem to have agency and do like cool self-govern manouvers, like the storming of the 80mm AA gun hill, etc. More like a teenage boy fantasy. Band of Brothers is another good example of cool agency. The opening assualt on the beach is some sort of low po…

How about these, instead?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front...

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#73

Post by jltsiren »

SkipperCat wrote: post #9
davidw wrote: post #5

I got unexpectedly shook up and a bit weepy reading about some of the goings on yesterday. I'm not much of a 'rah rah' guy, but those people stood up in the face of tyranny and many didn't come home. I thought what it'd be like for my own boy to go off to war. Democracy and freedom are worth defending.

A lot of people, including myself, feel similar when looking back at WWII. The roles of good and evil were very clearly defined and that has forged the US foreign policy up to today. Of course, there's a lot of things we know now which show the conflict was a lot more complex, but at its core, the Axis needed to be defeated for our western style of freedom to exist. I don't think we'll ever have something as clear cu…

The European theater of WW2 was a war between nazism and communism, with free countries on both sides, depending on where they happened to be located. East of a certain line, the initial aggressor was the USSR, not Germany. It was a confusing war, with some countries switching sides more than once and some countries being at war with some but not all major powers on the other side.

Things looked clearer on the Western Front, because it was a peripheral front outside the main conflict.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#74

Post by macintux »

lukan wrote: post #31
racional wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bandera Ooh, scary. Here's the deal, though -- the guy is glorified by some people in Ukraine, but not in any official capacity at the national level. When an attempt was made to grant him official "Hero" status at the national level, it was rejected. The monument in particular is a local endeavor. Doesn't make Putin's war anymore justified Right, but the idea here seems to be to throw cold water on idea that Ukraine…

"Right, but the idea here seems to be to throw cold water on idea that Ukraine is unambiguously the victim of aggression here" Yes, that is Putins plan. That doesn't mean there isn't any truth in its propaganda. The point we are discussing is, if the war Ukraine vs Russia is "as black and white as it gets". To which I disagree, you can find quite some black elements in Ukraine, too. Not at all on the same level and I…

Russia is raping and slaughtering its way through a country that did not invade it, was not threatening its neighbors, whose primary crime was being too friendly with the West.

Why does it matter whether all Ukrainian citizens are angels or devils?

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#75

Post by bell-cot »

cafard wrote: post #66
montagg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important point. There was a US isolationist strain as strong as it is today. The Man in the High Castle alt history, or The Plot Against America, both involve FDR not being involved for WW2, and that's where the US stands today: at a similar decision point about how it decides to act. The right path is never clear when you're in the valley of the moment.

I would remark that the isolationist strain developed after WW I, and included a fair bit of the liberal intelligentsia, e.g. Charles Beard. The Library of America Reporting WW II cheats on this, and implies that isolationism was a fetish of Republican congressmen from ethnic districts. Not so.

I was under the impression that the US was rather isolationist back in President Washington's day. And he argued rather strongly that it should remain so after he left office - in 1797.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#76

Post by TheAlchemist »

thombat wrote: post #40
TheAlchemist wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true towards the end of the war, but in the beginning ? The US didn't join the war until they were attacked. Same goes for UK and France - they technically did declare the war when Poland was invaded - as there was a defensive agreement between the 3 countries - but in reality they didn't send any help.

What help could they realistically send? Poland was between the two nations that were invading it and the UK was only just introducing a bomber (Wellington) with the range for a direct return flight to Warsaw (and such a flight was impossible since it passes over Germany). Marine access means a long Baltic voyage past the main German navy bases. An assault on Germany would have been via the neighbouring countries and…

What cooperation ?

France has a border with Germany - UK & France were supposed to launch an attack on Germany from there. In reality, they did a half-assed attempt to invade Germany and called it quits.

I believe that if UK & France did react, mobilize fully and went to war with Germany on 1 September 1939, the war would be much shorter.

Quite similarly, if the West did provide advanced arms (which we are providing now ! way too late) to Ukraine 2 years ago, Russia would be unable of unwilling to take any land and the war would be much shorter.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#77

Post by nvy »

rightbyte wrote: post #33
punk-coder wrote: post #28

My grandfather was a medic and was part of the storm of Normandy beach on D-Day. He never really spoke of it and had a stroke and passed away before Saving Private Ryan came out. We wondered what he would have thought of the beginning of that movie, as someone who was there and was running around helping people the whole time.

My take is that Saving Private Ryan is "pro-war" movie like most Hollywood productions on the topic and not about 2WW really. The give away is how the save Ryan squad seem to have agency and do like cool self-govern manouvers, like the storming of the 80mm AA gun hill, etc. More like a teenage boy fantasy. Band of Brothers is another good example of cool agency. The opening assualt on the beach is some sort of low po…

A lot of the maneuvers in Band of Brothers are realistic, especially the one where Speirs assaults the gun emplacements.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#78

Post by _DeadFred_ »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #67
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because 'and' here indicates an additional point being made, which was the point I was responding to (notice I talked about Mexicans and not about spanish). Now please respond to my Canadian laws that protect and/or elevate the french language challenge to your assertion that there would be violence if Canada had laws that favored a specific language. Because Canada has just those very laws to protect French.

>> Now please respond to my Canadian laws that protect and/or elevate the french language challenge I'm honestly not sure what your point is here. Are you comparing laws like the ones in Canada that guarantee an ethnic minority the right to be educated in their own language to laws like the ones in Ukraine that deny an ethnic minority the right to be educated in their own language? To me, those seem to be very differ…

Why different? English speakers are the minority in Quebec.

French speakers in a majority French speaking region felt their language should be protected from the much larger influence english. Ukrainian speakers feel their language should be protected from the much larger influence russian language.

Again see my above video of the President of Ukraine performing on Russian state TV in the russian language to celebrate New Years. Hardly the behavior of a Russophobe.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-96-major-provis...

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#79

Post by pstuart »

yobert wrote: post #13
multjoy wrote: post #11

Ukraine is about as black and white as it gets.

Amen. I used to be a pacifist before the Ukraine war. Now I feel like a completely different person.

Right there with you. Making it even more surreal to be "pro-war" is that the party of the previous president was rabidly anti-Russia until he came into office and did a 180.

Re: D-Day, as told by paratroopers

#80

Post by vundercind »

koolala wrote: post #3

My was inspired to be inspired about joining the military because of how amazing Band of Brothers was and paratrooping is akin to flying. Thank you for sharing this so I can read it and see another perspective.

The stat sheets on how likely a soldier who survived D-Day was to make it to the end of the war alive and intact may be worth looking at.

There’s individual heroism and that’s laudable, sure, but the war was a machine that used humans for fuel. Overall stats don’t look so bad but that’s because of how many folks it takes to support one front line soldier. If you were actually fighting your odds were… bad.

Modern footage of Ukraine may have a similar effect. Waiting around bored until a shell or drone kills you. Hooray, the glory of war.

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