VE Day 70 years afer

[MadTownSioux]

70 years ago today, my dad was recuperating from shrapnel wounds suffered in Operation Varsity after glidering in to Germany across the Rhine. He was also getting ready to ship out to the West Coast to get on a ship to prepare for the invasion of Mainland Japan.

Here's to all of the WW2 vets, and for the few remaining who are still alive. Dad is 93, and doing well.

Edit - can you edit a thread header?? AFTER

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

It's very unfortunate that some are starting to forget.

Sacrifices were made for the Constitution. It is up to all of us to preserve those freedoms, and ensure that those involved did not die in vain. Although some days it seems bleaker and bleaker to the point where we have even thought of giving up and considering said sacrifices to be in vain, we must learn from the courage of our forefathers who participated in this war. Never give up! Never surrender!

[LynahFan]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

How exactly was WWII about the Constitution, again? I'm genuinely confused by that statement.

[Kepler]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

Brits celebrate in Trafalgar Fountain, 8 May 1945.

Times Square.

Moscow.

Paris. Of course.

Berlin.

Okinawa.

Der Spiegel footage and photos of Europe.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

How exactly was WWII about the Constitution, again? I'm genuinely confused by that statement.

If we had lost, and Hitler took over, kiss freedoms goodbye.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

It's very unfortunate that some are starting to forget.

Sacrifices were made for the Constitution. It is up to all of us to preserve those freedoms, and ensure that those involved did not die in vain. Although some days it seems bleaker and bleaker to the point where we have even thought of giving up and considering said sacrifices to be in vain, we must learn from the courage of our forefathers who participated in this war. Never give up! Never surrender!

I wonder how many people this "In the Now" rag had to troll before they got the five ignorant youngsters and foreigners with bad English they were looking for.

[LynahFan]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

If we had lost, and Hitler took over, kiss freedoms goodbye.

Hitler was not coming to the US. Life would have sucked (understatement), but the Constitution would have survived.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

Hitler was not coming to the US. Life would have sucked (understatement), but the Constitution would have survived.

We don't know that for sure, especially when the US started to get involved. It would have taken a long time had we been invaded, though, given the Japanese's quotes.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

I wonder how many people this "In the Now" rag had to troll before they got the five ignorant youngsters and foreigners with bad English they were looking for.

Sometimes, you wonder. It's no different from "Jaywalking", if you remember that segment from The Tonight Show.

[alfablue]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

9 posts, two actually about the end of WWII, and the rest about how today's society sucks (apparently not knowing history)

ok.

WWII fascinates me, and not just from out standpoint. As a society, we really like to remember how much we all sacrificed as a country- and I know it was hard (407,000 died).

But it was much harder for Britain (only 383,000 died, but many civilians due to direct attacks), and an order of magnitude more difficult for the soviets (8,700,000-13,000,000 military and another 7,000,000 - 12,000,000 civilian losses).

I'm no commie, but put that in a different way- at the beginning of the war in '39, the US population was 131M and the Soviets were 169M, whereas at the end, we were 130M whereas the soviets could be as low as 144M- much closer to our size.

With Germany losing upwards of 9M- the soviets lost more than 2 for every German loss.

Hard to fathom that kind of loss.

And somewhere between 4.9-5.9M Jewish were killed.

If Wiki is close to correct- that was 3-4% of the entire world that died in almost 6 years of conflict.

Can't let that happen again.

[joecct]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

27 million Russians paid the price. With that total, their paranoia is a bit understandable.

Dad was on Okinawa when the war ended. Two of my uncle were enroute to Hawaii from the ETO to get set up for the invasion of Japan.

I'm a big fan of the Atomic bombs.

[walrus]

My dad's brother,who was at Cornell, enlisted, was on a b17, went down in English channel, KIA. My dad, also at Cornell, enlisted after that. Never made it overseas, thankfully.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

Grandpa never talked much about the war, and we never pressed the issue.

[gmann]

Grandpa never talked much about the war, and we never pressed the issue.

Same for me. My grandfather fought on the front lines but he never spoke about it. Never.

I lived next to a guy that was in the Normandy Invasion. If he heard a loud noise or especially in the fall when hunting started and he heard gunshots in the distance he wouldn't come out of his house for several days. One time I tried talking to him about WW II. It was 2002. With tears in his eyes he looked at me and stated he wasn't ready to talk about it.

[alfablue]

Re: VE Day 70 years afer

Grandpa never talked much about the war, and we never pressed the issue.

Same for me. My grandfather fought on the front lines but he never spoke about it. Never.

My great uncle was the same way- he was a paratrooper in the Pacific. From what my dad tells me, he suffered from getting malaria all his life, but never talked about it.

What a great guy he was.

I knew a guy who was a navigator on a B24 in SE Asia, too- another great guy.

Seems like many of the veterans who managed to not get PTSD too bad tried to be very nice and happy all the time. Their way of dealing with it.