D-Day OD Why World War II nostalgia has gone too far.

VernR

Do you really expect to get any rational responses to your posting on THIS site!!!  These “leftiesâ€? aren’t going to engage in any discussion of war.  War is the invention of the running dog lackey, military industrial complex, blah, blah, blah.  Why did we declare war on the Germans anyway?…the Germans didn’t attack us…it was the Japanese and we deserved it anyway!

I did see a flyover of my old squadron during the D-Day ceremony; that gave me a chuckle.  I used to get a kick at airshows when they would do flybys with a P-47 (Thunderbolt I) and an A-10 (Thunderbolt II).  Talk about aviation history!  Ooops…I mean down with the warmongering, capitalist pigs, blah, blah, blah.

I liked Ronnie; he was quite refreshing after 4 years with that hand-wringing peanut farmer.  I must admit I was quite apprehensive about his move to base GLCM and Pershing II missiles in Europe (since I would have been on the receiving end of a Soviet SS-20 missile).  I guess it paid off though.

Gee, an here I thought you remembered fondly our discussions of war and peace, Mild Bill!

Signed,
Nancy Pelosi

Submission word this time - no lie! - “systems”
This is beginning to scare me.

MB, not sure where you’re coming from with your response. Personally I’ve always been fascinated with World War II in part because my father participated in it. I often drive my family nuts by insisting on watching shows detailing aspects of it on the History Channel and while I am a “leftie” I don’t recall ever saying anything anywhere near what you’re claiming in your reply.

I’m not a pacifist by any stretch of the imagination and I have no problems with war when done for legitimate reasons. I challenge you to find a single statement on this site from me or anyone else that in any way makes the statements about World War II that you present in your reply. I do find it quite laughable when President Bush attempts to link the war in Iraq with being akin to World War II.

I do agree with some aspects of the Slate article that Elwed linked to with regards to how overblown D-Day hype has become as of late, but there’s plenty of documentaries out there that present a much better and more balanced view of the war if one is willing to look beyond Tom Brokaw as an authority.

Not sure what bug crawled up your tailpipe, MB, but if you’re going to criticize something about SEB it’d be nice if your criticisms actually had some basis in reality.

Yo Nancy...er...Brock

I have been reading, but not commenting lately.  I’d hate to break up the left-wing love fest that goes on here.  I especially enjoyed your comparison of calling someone a faggot to calling someone “the N word”.  Very enlightening.  I even saw that you mentioned my name in a post a while back (something about quote mining).  I’ll be standing by for the imminent revision of 1980s history that will undoubtedly take place here after Ron-Bo’s death.  I liked Les’ stirring tribute to him.  Then again, Les wasn’t even a teenager when Ronnie first ran (translation: Les was a pup).

Golly, I hope I don’t sound mean spirited.

MildBill, you’ve perfectly captured what we want in a president: wit, charm, and tough talk.  Simplistic answers to complicated questions. 

The fact that a gamble “paid off” doesn’t excuse throwing millions of lives on the table, yours included.

The president you liked was a former movie actor who never saw a battlefield except on a movie set.  He was a great talker, I’ll give him that.  The one you deride was a former military man with a scientific education, a successful farmer, who answered questions with straight talk instead of humourous quips.  I voted for Ford (hell, I was 19) and I didn’t think much of him as a president until after living through the Reagan, Bush, and Bush administrations.  Clinton is another subject for another time.

I notice conservatives who complain about blaming Clinton’s economy on Bush think nothing of blaming Nixon’s national mood on Carter.  (I voted for Ford.  Hell, I was 19.)

Carter was spot-on right about energy independence and the need for a balanced budget.  Your movie actor dumped energy research and racked up debts unsurpassed until the corrupt oil man moved into the house.  Our kids will be paying it off for generations - there’s some future nostalgia for you.

The fall of communism could have something to do with the fact that 1) it’s an oppressive system doomed to failure in the first place, and 2) three successive Soviet prime ministers got sick and died while Reagan was in office - no wonder their country was a mess.  By the time Gorby showed up (a man who lived through the German occupation of his home town, who worked in agriculture and earned a law degree), the military was almost fully in control of the country.  Somehow he manuvered the country through that time, resigning just as the evil empire broke up.

Like Les, I’ve always been fascinated by WWII and also by war generally.  But it’s made me realize we need to NOT EVER support corrupt fascistic thugs like Noriega, Marcos, Pinochet, Somoza, Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlevi, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, and whoever we’re grooming for the next developing disaster.  We always have a good reason, “lesser evil” and all that, but these entanglements tend to come back and bite us in the ass later.

Here’s my tribute to Ronald Reagan.

Who would have expected this entry to encourage controversial responses? Nice going there VernR. Hee hee!

Mild Bill, I’ve always enjoyed talking with you and the quote mining mention was offered fondly. I like the way you can stir things up, so stop being a stranger.

Sorry for double-posting but my previous entry really shows the dangers of cut-and-paste editing!

I meant to say (just once) that I voted for Ford when I was 19 but didn’t think much of Carter until…

[cue in sound of my old English teacher slapping my wrist with steel ruler]

I thought it was cooler that you said it twice. It seemed to really make the point somehow.

MB - Had a rough weekend did we?  I’m only a tad bit older than Les myself and I think that I can honestly look back on Reagan’s presidency in somewhat of an objective light.  Ronald Reagan was a contributing factor (small, but contributing) to why I chose to join the military.  I didn’t agree with his economic policy but at my youthful age his foreign policy somehow hit home with me.  Looking back on it, I can say say ‘yes it worked’. It accomplished exacly what it was supposed to do.  Destroy the Soviet Union at whatever cost.  We did ‘win’ the cold war.  We all benefit from 20/20 hindsight and the wisdom of age and I can see now that I would have rather have seen the US pursue a different approach but I stand by the choice that I made.  I don’t look at Reagan as a Hero nor do I villify him.  His passing is a sad thing in that it causes me to reflect back on my youth.  Would we have been better of without his policies?  Probably so.  Unfortunately, we’ll never know.

[Quote]Why did we declare war on the Germans anyway?…the Germans didn’t attack us…it was the Japanese and we deserved it anyway![/Quote]

Along those lines, why did we attack Iraq the first time?  I had no problem with the Gulf War as I believed it was a justified attack because Iraq had invaded a sovereign country.  I think Germany did them a few better.  Plus, the US declared War on Japan and its allies and then into entered into the war in Europe to defend our allies.

Drawing similiarities between the war in Iraq and WW II is pointless.

[Quote]Golly, I hope I don’t sound mean spirited.[/Quote]

You can sound however you like, just try and keep the facts straight.

Muhahahahahaahaha

You boys are still as easy as a drunken co-ed at a frat party.  More to follow.

I’m beginning to wonder if this is the same Mild Bill as has posted here previously. I don’t recall MB being this much of an ass.

I sure didn’t expect all of this, but who knows what directions a thread will take.

All I really wanted to do was let people know about the posters, and I thought that June 6 was a nice time to do it. I identify with this particular day because one of my uncles jumped in with the 82nd. Had the (VHF) networks given about 10 minutes to D-Day on their morning shows, I would have been perfectly happy and probably wouldn’t have mentioned Reagan at all.

The 60th anniversary is the probably the last time that WWII veterans will be able to assemble for a 10xN remembrance of the event. Interest in the Civil War flagged after the veterans of that war died until the 100th anniversary. Where D-Day fits in to the big picture may be resolved at some later time—say about 2040.

I too am a Warbird fan (another uncle was a B/N in B-26s). The P-61 Black Widow was the coolest model kit that I never finished (100% in the balsa wood department). Several years ago, when I was on vacation in Oregon, I visited the Air Museum at Tillamook. Until that time, I never realized how big the Navy’s dive bombers and torpedo bombers were until I saw their SBD—internal stores.

This is probably a little known fact. As part of his energy conservation program, Carter had Solar Panels installed on the White House roof. The Republicans had them removed after taking office. I’m still a little miffed with Carter for turning off the hot water to the men’s rooms in government office buildings.

I’ll take a cut at revisionist history (by borrowing from Al Franken) Here is his take on people who contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union.

-Truman through his doctrine
-John Paul II
-Lech Walesa and Solidarity
-Carter through his human rights initiative

In that it led to the INF Treaty, Reagan probably did a good thing by deploying the PII . He also pursued better treatment for Soviet dissidents an Jews. However, he missed the opportunity to reduce the number of long range ballistic missiles because he wouldn’t budge on SDI.

My son and I went and looked at the posters - they were cool.  We talked about how they could be used in a history class.  But a lot of people must have wanted to talk about Ronnie, me included.

My dad drove a truck for the Seabees on Trinidad during WWII - he was always very happy not to have been in the army or marines.  He had boundless respect for them, mind you, he was just glad to have not been one of them.  And being in the Pacific theatre, he was especially glad the war ended when it did.  Wasn’t looking forward to having anything to do with an invasion of Japan, no sir.  Not even as a truck driver. (Being a Seabee was usually, not always, non-combatent.)