A Message from Ike

[privateinvestor]

for your restraint in the face of extreme immaturity...

It's also refered to as a "Marine Thing"...

[handyman2]

Aside from being a brilliant military leader he was one of the greatest statesmen of our time. He had to keep a bunch of generals who were always looking for the plum assignments focused on the job at hand which was no minor task and had to keep The President, Churchill and Stalin from screwing up everything including the alliance between them. Keep his cool with the French resistance and keep Holland from being annihilated. A task few could have pulled of and kept their sanity. He was the leader for the time.

[deziloooooo]

Jun 6, 2011 19:50:01 GMT -5 handyman2 said:

Aside from being a brilliant military leader he was one of the greatest statesmen of our time. He had to keep a bunch of generals who were always looking for the plum assignments focused on the job at hand which was no minor task and had to keep The President, Churchill and Stalin from screwing up everything including the alliance between them. Keep his cool with the French resistance and keep Holland from being annihilated. A task few could have pulled of and kept their sanity. He was the leader for the time.

We hear how the the Atomic Bomb saved a million American lives and millions of Japanese, yet Eisenhower decision not to race to Berlin, stop on the Elbe , Patton to Checkoslavakia or where ever..
While that was the deal with the Russians..the Germans were pulling troops from the West to meet the Russian in the East he could have kept going, Russians it is said lost a million men in Berlin, not sure if that's true but a lot of people, that could have been us..would the Germans had fought as hard against us, their Capital, I believe so, and actually he's criticized for that. I never asked my Dad but I am sure that's one he didn't mind missing.

[privateinvestor]

Jun 6, 2011 19:50:01 GMT -5 handyman2 said:

Aside from being a brilliant military leader he was one of the greatest statesmen of our time. He had to keep a bunch of generals who were always looking for the plum assignments focused on the job at hand which was no minor task and had to keep The President, Churchill and Stalin from screwing up everything including the alliance between them. Keep his cool with the French resistance and keep Holland from being annihilated. A task few could have pulled of and kept their sanity. He was the leader for the time.

handyman2....Too bad the Republicans don't have anyone like Ike to campaign against Obama....General Patraeus has said he has no interest and he might be another Ike..?? General Powell has also declined to run for president so that leaves us with a bunch of Nobodies IMHO

Do you recall in Korea in early 1951 when the rumor was that McArthur would be the next presidential nominee for the Republicans??

[wyouser]

Ike was looking at the costs when he made his decision not to go to Berlin. We were already in territory that was to be handed back over to the soviets as their zone of occupation. He knew whoever went after Berlin , itwas going to be a costly bloody affair. Why have a lot of Americans die at that point in a war already virtually over? And yes, Soviet casualties were massively higher than what Stalin officially listed. As an aside...on the German side, do you know who died defending the Chancellery and Reichstag area close to and above Hitlers bunker? It is a bit ironic for a regime based on racial superiority...At the end the troops holding out above Hitlers bunker were ..SS division Charlemagne (a french volunteer SS unit) Reminents of an Estonian and a Latvian volunteer SS Divisions. All were ahnilated before Berlin capitulated to the Soviets

[deziloooooo]

I know it is the day after the anniversary of the day, and first have to say, ty and congrats to those who posted here on the day and topics.

I was disappointed on the ignoring of , when thread first posted, comments on any and all but the event, but since that point, all good and interesting comments by all and again, a , glad to see time has not diminished the thoughts of and the feelings of admiration for those of our forbearer's who participated, as I first thought was the case, glad to see I was mistaken.

In fact admiration and thanks to all of that time, whether on the front lines or home in the factories which is another story in itself, what our people and industrial leaders accomplished in such a short time, is what I am getting from the posted remarks and as Martha would say, "That is a good thing".

I am posting a transcript of a interview of two who participated on that day that Fareed Zakaria conducted yesterday, sorry can't go to a link, it would be the whole program.
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SAVIDGE: And tomorrow will mark 67 years since the D-Day invasion. Coming up, a talk with two survivors of that momentous day in history.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: The opening salvo on D-Day, the 6th of June, 1944. Thousands of Allied troops poured out on the beaches of Normandy with the aim to bring an end to Nazi Germany. Tomorrow marks the 67th anniversary of the invasion.

CNN's T.J. Holmes had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with two men who answered the call of duty on that fateful day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: On the anniversary days, a lot of people, the government makes a big deal out of it. The media will talk about June 6th, the anniversary. What about you guys? What do you all do on the anniversary every year of D-Day?

ROBERT "PUNCHY" POWELL, WWII VETERAN: Quite often I'm asked to make talks to various groups or participate in some of the ceremonies because I was a World War II veteran there, and we're dying off pretty fast these days and there aren't many of us around.

HOLMES: Do you like being a part of that kind of stuff?

POWELL: I feel like today's generation does not know much about the history of World War II. I was introduced by an Atlanta schoolteacher as a fighter pilot from World War "11." So I determined that I was going to do my best to help educate today's generations about World War II, because it still has a tremendous impact on this country today.

HOLMES: What about you?

GUY GUNTER, WWII VETERAN: D-Day is my birthday and I celebrate that with my children.

HOLMES: How old were you on D-Day? You turned what age?

GUNTER: Twenty-five.

HOLMES: That was a hell of a way to spend it.

GUNTER: I was in a glider flying over the channel, 1:00 in the morning. It was about 12:30.

HOLMES: Both of you all, since I have been talking to you, have reeled off stuff that happened many, many years ago now. But you can tell me exact dates and you're even giving me exact times now. Does that stuff just never go away?

POWELL: We took off at 2:30 in the morning. Completely blackout takeoff. And one of our pilots crashed into the tower on takeoff because we had no lights whatsoever. And so that's -- you remember things like that.

HOLMES: What was on your mind, and maybe it was fear, maybe it was pride, maybe it was that sense of duty? Were things happening every minute that kind of put you in a different mind-frame?

POWELL: Actually, it was a break for the rest of us. We took off by the fire light of his burning aircraft. The adrenaline was running so good at that particular time I don't think we had any fear. We were just anticipating what we were getting into. I don't think you had time to fear at that point.

HOLMES: Would you agree with that assessment?

GUNTER: When you are going on an invasion, you're scared to death. You don't know what the hell is going to happen. And you're not worrying too much about that. You're worrying about flying the equipment and doing the job you're supposed to do.

POWELL: That's right.

GUNTER: The rest of it comes naturally.

HOLMES: How did your day start? And do you remember the time as well when it started?

GUNTER: Took off at 12:00 at night. And we landed around 1:00, 25 miles back of the front. So we had an easy deal. That was the easiest mission I flew. Because we didn't have -- we had the element of surprise with us. We didn't have many people shooting at us.

But the problem we had, of course, we went in with the paratroopers, as you know. But the paratroopers that went in before us were oscillating. They had that old parachute. And they would hit these poles and break their backs and their arms and their legs. It was awful. So we had it easy. We'd go in in the gliders.

HOLMES: Still amazing to hear you say you had it easy.

GUNTER: It was.

HOLMES: Did you know you were making history, I guess, I should say? Did it feel like that at the time or were you just doing your duty?

GUNTER: Doing what I was supposed to do.

POWELL: That's right.

GUNTER: They paid me. But when you sign those papers, you've got to do what you're supposed to do.

POWELL: That's right.

GUNTER: And you do the best job you can and you try to stay alive. Because when you land it's either you or that guy.

HOLMES: Stay alive. How close did you come to not making it back?

GUNTER: I had several times. I could bore you to death with -- everybody in the service has those times. But most of our action was in close. And we did what we were going to do and tried to stay alive in a matter of hours, minutes. Because when you land, you're as close as we are here to the enemy.

HOLMES: Why did you want military service anyway?

GUNTER: Well, to fight for my country, naturally. And also it's exciting. You get to fly airplanes. You get to do a lot of things that you can't do at home.

HOLMES: Now, he just said he wanted to fight for his country. Do you think over the years, from when you guys were young men to today, do you think that sentiment still exists in the soldiers who are going into the military now?

POWELL: Although they called us the "greatest generation," I think these guys today are another great generation. They're doing -- they're involved in war that we wouldn't want to fight. At least we knew our enemy. They did not. Their enemy could walk up to them and drop a grenade and blow them away.

But we -- we knew our enemy. We could see those big black crosses on the airplanes we were fighting against. So that's a big difference. We still have a great generation out there today.