A belated thanks to The Greatest Generation

Seventy-five years ago this past Thursday D-Day became a reality. For virtually all of us here on LiveLeak we were still twinkles in the eyes of our parents to be. But for the people during that time, on both sides of the conflict, who sacrificed their lives during this day, they both were part of the Greatest Generation. It is profound that after so much bloodshed the friendships forged in the aftermath are strong today and hopefully so in the future to come.

A while back, I posted a video, along with some quotes, that captured what I thought constituted a pretty grim, but accurate, montage of what war is like. Having never served in the military (way too young for Vietnam, but too old for the more recent conflicts), I nonetheless got a sense of what war was like from the mute silence whenever I asked my dad what it was like from his perspective of being a B-17 pilot. In a rare moment of opening up about what it was like he did say, "Thank God Hitler didn't listen to his Luftwaffe commanders". When I asked him why, he said that "had Hitler listened to the Luftwaffe commanders and expanded production of the Messerschmitt Me 262 (the first operational jet fighter in WW2) things would have turned out much differently. As it was, Hitler was too focused on his V-1 and V-2 programs." When I asked him if he had ever encountered the Me 262 he said yes and they were virtually unstoppable. He is the one whose picture accompanies this video. He flew 35 missions and never lost a crew member, though they did crash land once in Belgium. He entered the war in June of 1944, having left his 18 year old newly married bride back in Tennessee. Neither of them knew for certain if they would ever see each other again. I am living proof, as are my three other brothers, that they did.

Accompanying this video is a picture of my father who was a B-17 pilot, his co-pilot, the navigator and the gunners on his plane. Unfortunately I was not able to find the picture of the Bombadier. He flew 35 missions and never lost a crew member. The picture of the young man not looking directly at the camera and the one with the young lady is my father and mom. I hope you enjoy watching it. The singer at the end is Vera Lynn.