The Real Fight Of The Century

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Tomorrow will mark the 75th anniversary of the start of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy, France – one of the ugliest spectacles of war in American history if not World history. When the fighting on this one stage had ended, both the Allies and the Germans would lose at least 110,000 soldiers – with estimates placing the Allies casualty count after the first month and a half after the invasion placed at 120,000.

It also marked a permanent turning of the tide in “The Great War” on the European front. After that, a German defeat seemed all the more likely, with the Allies having the numerical advantages coupled with the attrition rate of German soldiers dying being much greater in its frequency.

It was the NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw who is credited frequently for calling those of the WW2 era “The Greatest Generation.” Americas – whether they were Democrats or Republicans, it didn’t matter. They were fighting a good fight – against Adolf Hitler and his despotism, and against Japanese and their imperialist dogma.

A tip of the cap from myself to the survivors, the veterans, and those no longer with us. This American thanks you for your service to our country at the most critical time of modern history.

Deja Vu All Over Again

With everyone still talking about the death of Prince on the networks in a near breathless detail, it gave me a weird sense of deja vu that I’ve only had one other time in my life.

I was at home on February 1, 2003 in the early morning hours. I knew the space shuttle Columbia was set to land just past 9am. The cable news outlets were preparing to briefly cover the landing, or so I thought. I read on the bottom of the TV screen that Mission Control in Houston had lost contact with the shuttle minutes prior to landing, which began ringing alarm bells in my head. I knew from following the landings that there is usually a blackout period when the shuttle returns to Earth, but that time should have come and gone by that point.

Then the landing time of 9:16am came and went, still no shuttle. Commentators like Jay Barbree on MSNBC (who I once talked to in my radio travels, decent man) and Miles O’Brien on CNN were beginning to put Columbia and the fallen shuttle Challenger in the same sentence. Something was wrong, but what, and where would it come down, and in how many pieces?

The rest of the day was a blur. That day in February, to me, very much resembled January 28, 1986. The three anchors were the same: Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, and Dan Rather on ABC, NBC, and CBS respectively. The facts slightly different, but as was the case in 1986, a loss of all seven members of the crew, each time five men and two women.

Prince passing felt very similar to me to Michael Jackson’s passing. MJ died on a Thursday in June 2009 right after Farrah Fawcett had been buried, Prince died on a Thursday a few hours after pro wrestler Joan “Chyna” Laurer had passed in California. In both MJ and Prince’s cases, there seemed to be warnings the each was not well in the time leading up to the passing of each rock/pop legend, but only fully decipherable until both had respectively died.

Not to mention the “King Of Pop” had two sons named Prince, which is somewhat odd.

Another odd fact, Prince mentions in his 1987 song “Sign O’ The Times” the following lyric:

Is it silly, no?
When a rocket blows and, and everybody still wants to fly
Some say man ain’t happy truly until a man truly dies
Oh why, oh why?

In a way, everything ties together when you really look at things.

Much like that day in 2003, Thursday was a bit of a blur to me. Even though there were marked differences in the lives touched and now changed, it felt like generally it was the same script, a story I didn’t want to relive again, but a reality that will now be there eternally.

Remember Those Who Served Everyday

I’m not the most conservative man in the world, nor am I the most liberal. But as I get older, it dawns on me that people my age or younger don’t seem to respect history as much as the older (or as Tom Brokaw would say, the greater) generations.

Memorial Day just passed as I type this, the 25th such holiday since my father passed in early 1991. It will be the first of many 25th’s without my dad around over the course of the next year.

When he was 18, he served in the Army in a ski patrol unit in Colorado. While we won the second World War (otherwise, I’d be speaking to you in German or Japanese now if I had existed), our country didn’t fare well in snowy conditions. Thus the formation of this particular part of the service as an effort to make the country more able to be more mobile in future wars.  He was also photographed for Life magazine while he served, though I’ve never seen the particular photo in question. If anyone has a collection of those mags laying around during the post WW2 40’s, I’d love to see if I could find it. Fortunately, he never served in battle as he was still not of age when WW2 drew to a close.

My dad always loved watching skiing when it was on TV, particularly the tour events or Olympic events ABC used to have. One day when I was a kid I asked him about why he liked skiing, and he told me about his Army service. A kid from Florida like me had a hard time wrapping my head around something like that.

It is a good thing that we remember those who served on Memorial Day and the weekend that surrounds it. I just think they should be remembered more, and given better wisdom by their governmental leaders.