....

None of my family fought in Europe in WW2. I had two uncles who were in the Pacific at Guadacanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa though.

During my ten years as a Cold War attack submariner I feared for my life only twice. I can’t even begin to imagine the sense of fear and alarm of those brave warriors on that great and terrible day.

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Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

4 out of 3 people struggle with math.

Chemically, alcohol IS a solution.

NAR# 94042
SAM# 0078

My great Uncle Max participated in the D-day invasion at Omaha Beach.
He passed away earlier this year at age 100.
I never knew about his WWII service or Purple Heart until his funeral.

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, TURMOIL, FIASCOS, and HAVOC !

My dad joined right out of high school, just missing the war. His cruiser pulled into a Japanese harbor not long after the surrender. Somewhere along the trip a marine onboard shot and detonated an unmoored naval mine. He was the oldest boy, so my uncles had zero involvement.

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The other day I sat next to a woman who has a profound fear of flying. I wanted to comfort her, so I said, "Don't worry, we're not gonna' crash. Statistically, we got a better chance of being bitten by a shark." Then I showed her the scar on my elbow from a shark attack. I said, "I got this when my plane went down off of Florida." - Dennis Regan

My father was in the Marines during the Korean war though not deployed to Korea. My grandfathers, so far as I know, were not in the military. That would have been between the two World Wars.

My wife had a cousin who was a crew member in the Doolittle raid on Tokyo, though. Unfortunately he died in a training flight accident later in the war.....

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE

Amen. And thanks for your service!

I, like you, cannot imagine what it was like on those landing craft, standing, waiting to approach the shore and the front doors drop, wide open to whatever was coming their way. In some cases I guess, some were met with instant death as the Germany machine gunners aimed their barrels squarely at the disembarking troops, felling them in the surf.

And yet………they DID continue to hit the beaches, they DID continue to make their advances, even as comrade after comrade fell by the wayside. No movie can replicate that scenario, but I do vividly recall watching the opening moments of Saving Private Ryan as they hit those beaches. It ‘seemed’ pretty real on the big screen at the time, and I realized at some point some minutes into the film, I was VERY tightly clinching my chair armrests with my hands; like a steel grip! I *almost* felt like I was on that beach too. But, what I felt in that theater watching that film had to be only a VERY, VERY, VERY small amount of what it was REALLY like. Extreme terror? A resounding yes one can safely assume. I pray to God I never have to know personally what that was like.

Yeah, Greatest Generation. I think that fits pretty well…… God Bless ‘em all.

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

Every year I start watching "Band of Brothers" on Memorial Day.
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