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Post by chris on May 18, 2015 6:12:00 GMT -6
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Post by tubman13 on May 18, 2015 6:56:42 GMT -6
Thanks for sharing that. The St. Nazaire raiders knew what their chances were before going in.
Regards,
Tom
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Post by Yan Taylor on May 18, 2015 7:03:51 GMT -6
Nice on Chris.
Ian.
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Post by dave on May 18, 2015 9:18:36 GMT -6
Chris
Thank you for the post. What a remarkable man. Thank God that Great Britain has had such men for centuries who have kept her free.
Regards
Dave
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Post by chris on May 18, 2015 13:05:13 GMT -6
Tom, Ian, Dave,
You are very welcome. Am very glad the Telegraph explains so much about the lives of these remarkable people.
Best,
c.
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Post by dave on May 18, 2015 13:08:32 GMT -6
Chris
It seems that American papers do not often give the same details at the Brit papers do. I guess were are all too busy to read more than the bare minimum.
Good to see your posts again.
Regards
Dave
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 18, 2015 15:47:45 GMT -6
Rest assured the British papers don't gush over our war dead either. Rather than this morbid fixation on the honor of death and snuffling noses over people we don't know and did not know, pay civil and honest respect for their deeds and life and not make our lives a perpetual funereal sob fest. It's a broad tundra between no respect and making everything over the top for local tv and newspapers.
And when the wind in the tree-tops roared,
The soldier asked from the deep dark grave:
"Did the banner flutter then?"
"Not so, my hero," the wind replied.
"The fight is done, but the banner won,
Thy comrades of old have borne it hence,
Have borne it in triumph hence."
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave:
"I am content."
Then he heareth the lovers laughing pass,
and the soldier asks once more:
"Are these not the voices of them that love,
That love--and remember me?"
"Not so, my hero," the lovers say,
"We are those that remember not;
For the spring has come and the earth has smiled,
And the dead must be forgot."
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave:
"I am content."
This was part of a O.W. Holmes funeral speech called A Soldier's Faith. Aside from being a Justice of the Surpreme Court, he was a thrice wounded vet of the CW. There is something increasingly morbid and childish about the coverage and drama of soldiers' and peace officers' funerals. Rarely private, they're a performance for the cameras rather than anything deeply felt. Not always, but increasingly so.
And Holmes KNEW that only other soldiers understood this, and that they would not be pleased if what they left behind was an unending series of celebrations of the dead. They died to allow us better things. Honor that, and keep the tuberoses in the window.
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Post by Beth on May 18, 2015 17:05:42 GMT -6
Chris thanks for the share.
DC I love Holmes but there is a difference between an obituary of a person who has just died and someone long dead.
I tend to agree with about the coverage of some events today. They make me feel like a voyeur in someone else's life. I have a great solution though. I just don't watch.
On the other hand I understand people both quickly identify with a story and want to feel connected so if the family wants to invite them to the funeral, it is between them and the family.
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Post by chris on May 18, 2015 18:14:28 GMT -6
You are welcome Beth. Have to confess, I have no idea what DC's post was about.
Best,
c.
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Post by montrose on May 18, 2015 18:38:19 GMT -6
ST Nazaire has had a large impact on US title 10 functions. This means man, train, and equip the force, basically what Chuck and I did for our careers.
Bill McRaven and I went to same grad school. His thesis included Nazaire as a case study. His point was all about maximizing MDMP to win a specific fight at a designated point in space and time. One of the challenges I and all other unconventional warfare types face is winning a given fight may be not relevant, or counter productive.
His thesis was published as a book, I will link it when I am not feeling lazy.
There is a difference between killing as many bad guys as you can and winning a war.
Bill is responsible for the failure of US strategy and operations in GWOT, specifically the current issues in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, and a dozen more. He became a four star admiral who is responsible for the current administrations strategy and operational plans.
Theory matters.
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 18, 2015 22:26:39 GMT -6
What I object to is a near contest to be the loudest public mourner for people not known in order to ingratiate themselves for their own benefit more than the departed's legacy. Very common among those who want to bask in the reflected honor and glory of soldiers but who didn't and don't serve themselves (I didn't)and are not fond of coughing up the cash for the care and therapy of vets. Talk about it, but ends there. Again, Holmes. This is what preceded the Hungarian poem. All here. people.virginia.edu/~mmd5f/holmesfa.htm Man could write. "Three years ago died the old colonel of my regiment, the Twentieth Massachusetts. [Web note: Col. William Raymond Lee] He gave the regiment its soul. No man could falter who heard his "Forward, Twentieth!" I went to his funeral. From a side door of the church a body of little choir- boys came in alike a flight of careless doves. At the same time the doors opened at the front, and up the main aisle advanced his coffin, followed by the few grey heads who stood for the men of the Twentieth, the rank and file whom he had loved, and whom he led for the last time. The church was empty. No one remembered the old man whom we were burying, no one save those next to him, and us. And I said to myself, The Twentieth has shrunk to a skeleton, a ghost, a memory, a forgotten name which we other old men alone keep in our hearts. And then I thought: It is right. It is as the colonel would have it. This also is part of the soldier's faith: Having known great things, to be content with silence. Just then there fell into my hands a little song sung by a warlike people on the Danube, which seemed to me fit for a soldier's last word, another song of the sword, but a song of the sword in its scabbard, a song of oblivion and peace. A soldier has been buried on the battlefield....." Previously: "Out of heroism grows faith in the worth of heroism." Maybe not in battle for most but in standing up for what is right when needed, and even when not. For this alone it is important to honor our dead soldiers for, bluntly, the illustrative example of heroism for a good cause is simply righteous and rather by osmosis accepted as such. Today, it's like what has been learned is more in the nature of marketing one's brand and wearing the deceased's name like a Nascar sponsor sticker. "I publicly mourn (-ed) for......... so honor me for my taste and patriotism...." |
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Post by Beth on May 18, 2015 22:36:32 GMT -6
My favorite Holmes quote is ""A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."
Of course neither can a balloon once it has filled with hot air, so one has to be selective with what they chose to fill their heads with.
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Post by Yan Taylor on May 19, 2015 3:15:56 GMT -6
Operations like Chariot (St Nazaire) and even costly failures like Jubilee (Dieppe) forced Hitler to divert troops from other fronts to defend his Atlantic wall, plus the British learned some valuable lessons too, one was the use of specialized armour (the funnies)which the British and Canadians employed on D-Day, Dieppe had shown how a sea wall could prevent armour from getting off the beach, so certain vehicles were converted to breach these obstacles.
Some experts say that the US forces on Omaha could have benefited from these AFVs, but for some reason the US army rejected them.
Ian.
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Post by montrose on May 19, 2015 5:56:25 GMT -6
DC,
My great something grandfather served in D Co, 20th Mass. I have a poem he wrote on Ball's Bluff that I plan to transcribe.
he 20th had two officer factions, one pro slavery and the other opposed. It is interesting that the officers who were pro slavery were all Harvard grads. The abolitionists included Germans, folks from Nantucket and the Vineyard and a few Catholics.
The Harvard faction took over the history of the war. They ran the Mass Historical Society and they wrote or supervised all books and the major magazines. It is only in the past few years that I have been reading primary materiel that I realize how they fluffed up the role of the WASPs, and slighted everyone else.
One thing this board has taught me, is understand that secondary sources have bias.
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Post by dave on May 19, 2015 8:42:25 GMT -6
A great Holmes quote
"In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire"
Regards
Dave
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