Remembrance of Things Past
Today was the 68th Anniversary of D-Day. While that’s not a “magic number” anniversary – like 2009 was (the 65th) or 2019 will be (the 75th), it’s still a day worth remembering.
By most, anyway. But not by all.
Some people forget, I guess. They get caught up in life, and are too busy to take time to remember those who fought 68 years ago today to ensure that America remained free.
Some whose family fought in World War II are even too busy to remember. Even when those family members were someone close – like a grandfather, or a grand-uncle. Oh well, such is modern life.
But you’d think the POTUS would remember D-Day.
For the third consecutive year, the POTUS has done nothing to commemorate publicly the anniversary of D-Day. His schedule today just doesn’t seem to have allowed it. The last time he did anything to recognize D-Day publicly was in 2009 – the 65th anniversary.
And it looks like the POTUS was also too busy to post a D-Day statement on the White House Website or to make a Presidential proclamation observing today’s D-Day anniversary.
But I’ll give the POTUS credit; he was able to find the time to issue a public statement noting yesterday’s passing of noted author Ray Bradbury. That was important enough to merit some of his time.
I know the POTUS is a very busy man. But it seems he could find maybe a 1/2 hour to do something – somewhere – on the 6th of June to pay his respects to those Americans who fought in Normandy on that date in 1944. You’d think he’d do at least that much, since his maternal grandfather supported the D-Day landings and one of his great-uncles went ashore at Omaha Easy Red on D+4. And another of his great-uncles participated in the liberation of the Nazi forced labor camp at Ohrdruf.
I guess the POTUS had his reasons for not publicly commemorating D-Day today. Maybe he was simply too busy. Or maybe he just plain forgot. But I still just don’t understand why he couldn’t find the time to remember and recognize those who, 68 years ago today, fought to ensure his freedom – even though he wasn’t yet born.
After all: he seemed to have plenty of spare time 9 days ago to visit Arlington National Cemetery and the Vietnam War Memorial.
Category: Historical, Politics, Veterans Issues
Many POTUS’s seem to forget. If I recall correctly, GW Bush only recognized the anniversary in 2001 and 2004.
Given his past history of taking credit for the actions of others I’m sure we’ll soon learn that it was his idea for Ambassador Rivkin to take part in the jump over Normandy on Sunday. After all, he does make the “gutsy” calls.
He tweeted about it, meh. Back in 94 as a young PFC I was there for the 50th. Spent time on the beaches, at Pointe Du Hoc, St. Mere Eglise, Vier, Vierville, and most memorable, walking through the cemetery on the bluff overlooking the beach. Every year that passes we see more and more elected leaders who have never worn a uniform and who don’t understand sacrifice. It is as much a tragedy as the passing of the vets who made those landings. And for the record, I had my ass drun under the table by some 70+ year old vets at a bar in St. Lo, true NCODP
“Republicans are the party of the rich.” – Barack Obama, on jet to Baden-Baden for a fundraiser Anna Wintour’s summer chalet
CI: that is technically correct, if somewhat misleading. And shame on Bush(43) for not at least doing something annually to remember D-Day, even if nothing more than issuing a short Presidential Proclamation or brief public statement/press release.
As to the “misleading” part: Bush’s 2002 Memorial Day speech was delivered at the Normandy American Cemetery, Colleville-Sur-Mer, France, and focused as much (if not more) on D-Day as it did on Memorial Day. While not technically a “D-Day observance”, de facto it was.
Ya know, seeing the direction things are going, it’s up to US, all of us here, to let our children and grandchildren know what those brave men and women did. Neither side of my family has a living WW II veteran and each side only has one living Korean War veteran. The best thing my brother did was to tape record dad talking about his life. He also video recorded just puttering around the house, at an urban lake fishing, etc. His great-grandson, born 12years after his great-grandfather passed will know what he looked like and sounded like.
Yea had seen it personally last year.
I earned the Schützenschnur on June 6th. However I wanted to go in a corner and cry when people did not see the Irony of of earning a German award on the date of D-Day. Or perhaps it was the fact that no one knew that D-Day is on June 6th.
I have a poster that shows a very detailed map of how the invasion happened and what units were were.
They remembered at the cmt music awards…
I’m not a fan of the current President, but I have to ask– did George W. Bush give a speech for every anniversary of D-Day?
Very busy men and women have a personal staff to draft, publish and post messages. Said busy person need only review the draft, or have the Chief of Staff review it before publication.
We can this “Routine Business.”
Professionals call it either “taking care of business,” or “sweating the small stuff.”
It’s why the staffer is getting paid in 5 large numbers.
Obama and his staff are the most pathetic, and incompetent people to ever get power. Shit like this really tells you how hard the MSM has worked to keep up Obama’s godlike appeareance.
Too bad he’s the god of clowns.
What a lot of people may not understand…if it wasn’t for the troops of WWII, a lot more of the world would be speaking German and Janpanees.
Guten natch
You said: “…it’s still a day worth remembering.”
Amen to that, brother. Thanks.
I’m a little irritated that I keep seeing this story inflated by many folks I adore and respect. I am certainly no fan of Obama, but not everything is his fault and calling him out on this one is nothing short of a double standard.
Hondo, did you do any additional research on this? I spent some time on it yesterday morning. The standard White House practice is to recognize 5th and 10th year increments of the anniversary.
Obama is not the only President who “couldn’t find (the) time”. Bush 43 was in office for 8 years and only found the time on the actual anniversary twice (2001, 2004). For four consecutive years, he failed to do so (2005-2008). How many times did his father “skip it”? And Reagan? He nailed it on the 50th but what did he do the other 7 years he was in office? How about Nixon?
While my Grandfather wasn’t at Normandy, he was at Guadalcanal. The older I get, the more I understand why his is The Greatest Generation. They deserve to be honored and remembered, not used to make a political point.
Personally, I think every President should, at minimum, issue a proclamation every year. But the sad fact is, they don’t.
Kristie: agreed that previous Presidents have done a less than admirable job in remembering D-Day – as was covered above in comments 1 and 5.
But as I observed in comment 5: de facto, Bush(43) was 3 for 8. His Memorial Day 2002 speech was given from the Normandy American Cemetery and dealt more with D-Day than anything else.
Why it isn’t standard practice to issue a Presidential Proclamation or Presidential Statement remembering D-Day each year at a minimum, I don’t know. It should be.
IMO, that’s particularly the case since the POTUS can apparently find the time to issue statements regarding the passing of famous authors who die on 5 June.
Hey dipshit nice job focusing your hypocritical ire on Obama when your own kind have done the exact same thing. But tyats already been covered.
What’s so important about D-Day, why is it worthy of special mention? Where were you and your righteous anger every year Obama and his predecessors let slip by the anniversaries of Valley Forge, Yorktown, Saratoga, Fort McHenry, New Orleans, Chapultepec, Antietam, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, The Marne, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Hurtgen Forest, Chosin, Inchon, Tet, Operation Hastings, Operation Junction City, Grenada, Panama etc etc etc etc etc?
I geuss the lives lost on D Day are just more important than the ones lost in those other battles, right?
Gallagher, to begin to answer to your question, you’ll have to answer this one:
What was D-Day, also known as Operation Overlord? What was it for?
Gallagher Fan: you’re entitled to your opinion; I’m entitled to mine. Mine is that you should go fornicate yourself, now – preferably with a pineapple. Or maybe a rusty old-style entrenching tool.
By the way: what, precisely, is my “own kind”? Am I black? White? Oriental? Hispanic? Native American? Heinz-57 mixed race? Am I Christian? Muslim? Jewish? Atheist? Buddhist? Hindu? Agnostic? What ethnicity am I? What gender?
My point: you don’t freaking know what my “kind” is, jackass. In fact, you don’t know jack about me. So how about you can the stereotype bullshit. You can make a big enough fool out of yourself without going there.
Good job avoiding the question. Generally when someone wishes to see something become policy they go about justifying their position with a logical argument. Of course, you don’t actually have a justification because you’re filled with even more shit than Rosie O’Donnell’s septic tank.
The gauntlet has been laid down. Justify your position or shut your idiot mouth. Seeing as you have nothing though I suspect you’ll take the latter option just after you try one last impotent attempt to insult. Enjoy your pathetic life.
I didn’t avoid your questions. I ignored them because I’ve already answered the implied one, and the answer to the other is self-evident. You’d know that if you’d bothered to read the comments here vice running your mouth without engaging brain.
Read the freaking comments here, Gallagher Fan – specifically, comments 1, 5, and 14. I’ve already addressed your point.
Now, it’s probably best that you run along and play elsewhere, child. Anything you say from this point forward will merely point out the fact that you’re either lazy or a fool. Or both.
If the importance of D Day is so self evident, surely you’d be able to illustrate to a simpleton such as myself why it’s more worthy of mention than other major battles in American history, particularly battles that resulted in even more American dead, under worse conditions. Instead, you did exactly what I predicted you would because you are fucking clownshoes.
Have you ever seen the Shawshank Redemption? If so, remember when Andy Dufrense crawls through a shit filled sewer pipe to freedom? You are the sewer pipe.
Gallagher Fan: you just admitted above that you are a simpleton.
Simpletons are incapable of understanding anything beyond rudimentary concepts. I have neither the time nor inclination to attempt an explanation to someone who openly admits they have the intellect of a fence post.
And please spare me the predictable “you didn’t address my question” objection or the “You got nothing – I won!” bull. I didn’t address your question because I don’t feel it worth my time. Period. You’re obviously arguing merely for the sake of argument, and are acting like a complete ass while doing so. I therefore choose not to continue to waste any more of my time with you. You’re not important enough.
Don’t like that? Fine. You don’t have to. Take your disagreeable behavior elsewhere.
If I wasn’t worth your time, you wouldn’t be wasting time writing three paragraphs about me. It’s telling too, because you could have probably justified your opinion on Normady in one or two paragraphs. The fact that you didn’t tells me that you are indeed full of shit, and that this whole entry was just a cynical political attack on a President that you don’t like. Go ahead and stick your fingers in your ears while repeatedly claiming that I’m too stupid to understand a simple argument in favor of the position you are advocating. It just serves to further my point that you have no argument.
As for your contentions regarding Bush 43, I love how you try to shoehorn his visit to Normandy in 2002 as a veneration of D-Day, instead of calling it what it was, a politically expedient move given that he was already in Europe for a NATO summit. As for 2004, it was an election year during wartime so forgive me if I’m somewhat skeptical of his motivations, especially since he did nothing to commemorate it after he was re-elected.
Sure, you said above that Bush should have done more, but I seriously doubt that you were writing sappy, weepy bullshit essays about it at the time, and the reason that you weren’t was because you liked the guy in office.
You’re full of shit. You are shit. Go fuck yourself, you disingenuous tool.
Ha I was just telling a buddy how this blog has a remarkably low number of trolls… since this thread has degenerated into nonsensical digital vomit I have some things to add. I love the Shawshank redemption, and I want Morgan Freeman to narrate my life.
hondo, you made two mistakes. I think you know one was responding to that idiocy… the other was oriental. Oriental is an adjective for a rug, not a race or ethnicity. I realize Asian is absurdly vague, but it’s what we have to work with. Stupid I know, since you’re mostly white with a little Apache and a “bad temper.”
Gallagher fan, I’m not a history buff but several battles you listed were civil war… Can you see why there would be an issue with publicly memorializing those days? When we triumphed over… Ourselves. Also the Chosin reservoir was a sound defeat.
Please stop trolling. I won’t presume to speak for hondo, but it didn’t look to me like he was condoning lapses in Republican memories or detracting from the importance of any other battles. In fact I’m sure he would be all for any president making a proclamation for every battle’s anniversary; however, most civilians and even a few vets would find that tiresome.
Finally. Thanks for confirming my suspicions that you were dissembling all along, Gallahger Fan.
Your problem with the article always was that you didn’t like the conclusion it implies: that the current POTUS has at best a marginal commitment to military and veterans. But you were too cowardly to admit that openly until now. Instead, you attempted to disguise your intent with that “Why is Normandy so special?” smokescreen. As well as by raising the “Well, other Presidents did the same!” red herring. And the reason for the gratuitous insults – e.g., you were hoping I’d get angry and say something foolish – was also pretty transparent.
I figured all that out as soon as I read your first comment above. And I also figured if I played you long enough you’d eventually confirm that publicly for all to see.
Yeah, you were played. Thanks for playing; hope it was fun for you, too. (smile)
Now run along and find a different game to play, child. Adults have more important things to do than deal with your tantrums.
As does the rest of the world.
Ya know Gallagher Fan, I’ll listen to anyone and everyones arguments until they start with the insults or vulgarities. Anyone with any education or civility can make an argument/point without it. You can’t. Kinda makes it obvious.
LZ: my having any Apache ancestry whatsoever would be difficult approaching impossible, given where both sides of my family hail from. Other tribes, yes – if one side of the family’s history is accurate. I don’t really know, nor do I care, if that bit of family lore is correct. Ancestry doesn’t matter. Conduct and character does.
A minor quibble: in point of fact, the term “Mongoloid” is the term formerly used in anthropology to refer to one of the classical major human racial classifications. That is what I was referencing when I used the term “Oriental” earlier. We were therefore both wrong. (smile)
Hondo, I think the terms “Oriental” and “Occidental” are still used in some contexts.
Ha, I mistook you for Hondo Lane. Uhh.. I took an intro level anthro class 5 years ago, so I’m kind of a big deal in that community, and I don’t remember reading that. [insert insults and fictitious implications of your previous comments]
Yat Yas, don’t judge a troll by his profanity. Gallagher fan rattled off nearly 20 battles, so I’d feel safe assuming he’s had some formal education and read at least 1 (maybe 2) books on the civil war. Remember that education and ignorance are not mutually exclusive. He may even be highly intelligent but narrow minded or clever enough to stir shit but still an amateur at keeping it moving. He has a functional knowledge of pop culture from over a decade ago and a gift for stating the obvious; however, his language belies his age and the fact that hondo got under his thin, frail skin.
We do all realize that everything a president (or candidate) says is a political maneuver yes? I read the post several times and all I took from it was a little shame that I didn’t call gramps to say thanks. Of course, I’m not the POTUS and gramps was in the Pacific.
Thank you for once again confirming that I am worth your time, and that you’re also a moron.
I was pretty clear from the outset that your criticism of Obama is hypocritical in face of your silence when previous administrations have done the exact same thing. I said this in my first paragraph. A 6th grader could understand its implications. If you’re going to paint Obama as unsupportive of solders and veterans, shouldn’t you do so by citing actual evidence of that accusation instead of say, selectively harping on him for something both he and his predecessors are equally guilty of? Once again, a sixth grader can understand this. Go after Obama for Tricare if you like, at least you can make an argument regarding that which wouldn’t be obviously hypocritical. An eleven year old can comprehend this.
Did you finish the sixth grade, Hondo?
As for my question, I still want an answer. I know you won’t give me one, because you’re a fucking fraud.
A few years ago I got a pretty good dressing down from a youngster about the use of the term “Oriental.” After explaining first that she didn’t have enough life experience to try to teach me anything and second had better not EVER try using that particular tone of voice in conversation with anyone ever again, I was able (finally ) to explain that the word is not a racial slur.
Still waiting for an answer to my question about how substituting one word for another makes anyone using either word more or less racist.
But, this topic is about honoring those worthy of being honored. Those who choose not to do that, well, do you seriously expect the “memorial and remembrance police” to come arrest you for not doing so? If not, then how exactly does it impact your life if others of us wish to honor them?
It is beyond sad that there are so many among us who are not simply content to live with their own choices but demand that we do so also. Weird.
LZ: nah – that’s a different Hondo. (smile)
Last comment on this one for me @OWB. my experience with the word oriental was similar although she was a similar age and I thought she was joking… It didn’t go well for me. As to the meaningful part of your comment, spot on. Obviously I couldn’t have said it better myself or I would have. I believe this day should be honored by all, but I have no more control over President Obama than I do over our troll friend. So I’ll just wrap up with thanks for the reminder, hondo.
Just in case you were wondering, Gallagher Fan: no, I didn’t miss your last comment above. You’re being ignored.