In Awe of the Greatest Generation

[SeabeckS]

An interesting thread to read, to be sure.

As a kid growing up in Iowa, I had a hard time understanding why my Dad left us. And why my Stepfather had his share of issues too, which led to another divorce.

I knew they were both in the Army during WWII but didn't know much about the details of their service. As I found out much later in life, they were both members of the Iowa National Guard, when activiated this Guard unit from Iowa, Minnesota, and the Dakota became the US 34 Infantry Division. The very first troops shipped to Europe, and then made the landings in North Africa before moving on to the Sicily and Italian invasions. About half of the original Darby's Rangers came from the 34th (the Red Bulls), and my stepdad was one of those selected. The 34th held the record for the number of consecutive combat duty days on the front lines in WWII, a combat duty record that I've been told still stands.

I can remember my stepdad telling me about one town they eventually took in Italy. The unit he was in at the time had about 200 soldiers. 13 of them survived that particular battle.

No wonder they had problems dealing with civilian life. Think they call that PTSD these days. And a reason I do what I can to support veterans organizations now.

 

[greenwald]

An interesting thread to read, to be sure.

As a kid growing up in Iowa, I had a hard time understanding why my Dad left us. And why my Stepfather had his share of issues too, which led to another divorce.

I knew they were both in the Army during WWII but didn't know much about the details of their service. As I found out much later in life, they were both members of the Iowa National Guard, when activiated this Guard unit from Iowa, Minnesota, and the Dakota became the US 34 Infantry Division. The very first troops shipped to Europe, and then made the landings in North Africa before moving on to the Sicily and Italian invasions. About half of the original Darby's Rangers came from the 34th (the Red Bulls), and my stepdad was one of those selected. The 34th held the record for the number of consecutive combat duty days on the front lines in WWII, a combat duty record that I've been told still stands.

I can remember my stepdad telling me about one town they eventually took in Italy. The unit he was in at the time had about 200 soldiers. 13 of them survived that particular battle.

No wonder they had problems dealing with civilian life. Think they call that PTSD these days. And a reason I do what I can to support veterans organizations now.

Thanks for everything you do for them today!!

 

[SCBuckeye]

Have any of you watched the rather lengthy movie series called "Band of Brothers"? Excellent! Makes me stand even more in awe. They truly were the greatest generation!

 

[71243]

Have any of you watched the rather lengthy movie series called "Band of Brothers"? Excellent! Makes me stand even more in awe. They truly were the greatest generation!

It kind of strikes me odd that many/most things The Greatest Generation as they are known did...are scoffed at by the current generations? Including they way in which they fought & ended WWll.

They [Greatest Generation]...observed no civil rights, women's rights, equal rights,gay rights. Promoted segregation ,scoffed integration , called a spaded a spade , and had never even heard of political correctness. And they did not get hired or promoted at their jobs due to belonging to any particular group of society. They were hired on their merits, and promoted on their performance.

Men went to work & women stayed home & cooked...even after they [women] maned [no pun intended] the factories for manufacture during the war.

Cigarette smoking was @ it's highest % and drinking & driving was considered a low level crime....if a crime at all?

Credit cards were [as far as i know] unheard of, they had a lay-away plan, where you paid [FIRST} then received your purchase,they were expected to put min-20% down on a house purchase, and if they failed on payments they were evicted. Special consideration for a loan was given to returning Vets...and only returning Vets...not just some schmuck...

Not stating a platform ...just sharing a thought. Not sure which generation has [had] it right ? And while I do not support / agree with all behaviors of that time...I think some lessons from them should be learned & could be proven improvements in today's world.

And yes I experienced most of the above...

 

[SCBuckeye]

They [Greatest Generation]...observed no civil rights, women's rights, equal rights,gay rights. Promoted segregation ,scoffed integration , called a spaded a spade , and had never even heard of political correctness. And they did not get hired or promoted at their jobs due to belonging to any particular group of society. They were hired on their merits, and promoted on their performance.

This is painfully just not true! However, they DID preserve the world from Socialists who literally mass-murdered over 6 million Jews and many hundreds of thousands of others.

Watch "Band of Brothers" and tell me just how many of "this" generation, those who are so critical of the "greatest generation" would have suffered so? I understand from many that that series is extremely close to the actual war and the awfulness of that war including fighting the weather elements.

I will stop short of any political rantings here as they are not allowed, but there are problems in any generation. The current one does not have a monopoly on knowing what is morally or politically correct.

For me, I stand in awe of the "Greatest Generation."

Little story. I am generally not an emotional person. But...about 20 years ago, I couldn't sleep, so I got up, went downstairs, and turned on the TV. There was a documentary on which had actual film footage of one of the Nazi concentration/extermination camps. It showed literally thousands of naked Jews, dead, and visibly starved, being transported in on railroad flat cars. Then, there were fellow Jews who were, by gunpoint, forced to carry those dead bodies from the flatcars to huge holes in the ground (about the size of a football field and about 20 or 30 feet deep) and toss them in. The bodies, once flung in, rolled to their spots like rag dolls. Then there were more Jews forced to move the dead further so that they could make more room for more.

I literally was in tears while watching that. I will never forget it.

Yes...we all owe a lot to the "Greatest Generation." I compare them to the namby-pamby pseudo-intellectuals in the Harvards and Yales and Princetons and scores of other schools who get all bent out of shape when a death-row inmate has about 20 seconds of discomfort while being executed for raping and murdering a poor innocent young woman! Most of these wimps have a hard time suffering through a papercut!

Give me men (and women) that gave us our freedom, and suffered immensely and the thousands who died to provide me the time to sit here and type this up!

Thanks to all of you who have fought for our great (greatest on earth - ever!) country and the world.

 

[71243]

"This is painfully just not true! However, they DID preserve the world from Socialists who literally mass-murdered over 6 million Jews and many hundreds of thousands of others."

How so ? none of the 'rights' I mentioned were law or even observed in the 30's-40's-50's...etc There was no political correctness,...The generation of those days lived pretty much as i described...

 

[classicvw]

Elvis on that list, or was that a movie he did?

Elvis was already quite the celebrity and rising fast, and earning a fortune, and could have had his draft selection quashed but he did not ever consider doing that. Those years in Germany cost him a fortune. My brother in law was his replacement in his unit in Germany when Elvis came stateside.

Wish somebody would draft Justin Bieber. He's 19, the age of most troops that served in our wars.

 

[36654]

After WW-II, but before being president, General Eisenhower served as president of Columbia University. His brother Milton, was president of Kansas State (1943-1950), Penn State (1950 - 1956) and Johns Hopkins (1956-1967 & 1971-1972). At most of our public universities, you can still find some remnants of the bungalows / barracks that were built to house the vets attending college on the GI Bill. In the case of the last two schools that Milton Eisenhower presided over, you'll find extensive DOD research labs

BTW, the weenies at Harvard and Columbia were the folks that gave the US Navy a real torpedo (i.e., sonar). Without them, a lot more troop transports and Liberty ships would have been lost to U-boats. The A-bomb started at the University of Chicago.

Relative to some vets....

John Kennedy, a WW-II vet, graduated from Harvard
Gerald Ford, a WW-II vet, graduated Yale Law
George H.W. Bush, a WW-II vet, graduated from Yale

 

[motodan]

I think the Canadian Army would have to draft Justin Beaver.

And let's not forget Audie Murphy...not an Ivy League grad and Hollywood came afterward....

"Audie Leon Murphy (June 20, 1925 ? May 28, 1971) was one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II. He was awarded every U.S. military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, and was decorated by France and Belgium. He served in the Mediterranean and European Theater of Operations. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for his defensive actions against German troops on January 26, 1945, at the Colmar Pocket near Holtzwihr, France. During an hour-long siege, he stood alone on a burning tank destroyer firing a machine gun at attacking German soldiers and tanks. Wounded and out of ammunition, Murphy climbed off the tank, refused medical attention, and led his men on a successful counterattack.

Murphy was born into a large sharecropper family in Hunt County, Texas. His father abandoned the family, and his mother died when he was a teenager. Murphy dropped out of school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family, and his skill with a hunting rifle was a necessity for feeding them. His older sister helped him to falsify documentation about his birth date to meet the minimum-age requirement for enlisting in the military."

The greatest generation was that because they lived during and met the "greatest challenge"...I hope our world never has that same "opportunity" again.

 

[SeabeckS]

Thanks for everything you do for them today!!

And my thanks to you Kevin, for starting this thread.

I had the pleasure and honor to work along side a WWII vet in my early career. I knew Alden "Bud" Ingalls for a couple of years before getting to know some of his stories, he was a humble and hardworking gent.

He was a machinists mate in the Navy before the war began. His ship was a repair vessel, the USS Vestal. On December 6, 1941, the Vestal tied up alongside the USS Arizona to begin some repair work on Monday. On Dec 7, he and a good friend wanted to go look around the Arizona, but decided to wait until the colors were raised that morning. The Vestal was struck during the attack on the Arizona, and the explosions on the Arizona blew several Vestal crewmen, and their captain into the water, and orders were given to abandon ship. The captain swam back to his ship re-assumed command, and got the Vestal underway. He purposely beached the ship to keep it from sinking, it was repaired and refloated in mid-February 1942, and remained in service as fleet repair ship for the duration.

Frankly was somewhat amazed to hear these things from Bud, who was just a quiet and soft spoken hardworking guy. He really opened my eyes one time at an all department meeting. Someone made an off the cuff remark about those "lousy Jap cars, how could anyone buy one?". Bud stood up and said, "I have a Mazda, I was at Pearl Harbor, and what the Hell does Pearl have to do with the common Japanese people who build these cars now?". An interested discussion ensued, Bud quickly won over the crowd!

Proud to have called him my friend...long time gone, never forgotten. Continue to R.I.P. Bud...

 

[SCBuckeye]

Frankly was somewhat amazed to hear these things from Bud, who was just a quiet and soft spoken hardworking guy. He really opened my eyes one time at an all department meeting. Someone made an off the cuff remark about those "lousy Jap cars, how could anyone buy one?". Bud stood up and said, "I have a Mazda, I was at Pearl Harbor, and what the Hell does Pearl have to do with the common Japanese people who build these cars now?". An interested discussion ensued, Bud quickly won over the crowd!

This reminds me of a bumper sticker that someone had displayed at work where I managed. It was a union shop, and one of the line persons had a sticker that said "Toyota, from the same people who gave you Pearl Harbor."

I was always ashamed of that and wish it would have been taken down, but it wasn't.

 

[36654]

Toyota, originally a textile loom manufacturer, entered the truck market in the 1930's to support the Japanese war in China. The company was "encouraged" by the military gov't in this effort.

Honda started as a piston ring supplier to Toyota motor in the late 1930's during the Japanese war in China.

Nissan's roots date from 1914 and there's an interesting similarity with Dixi (i.e., BMW)........they built Austin 7's.

Subaru is an outgrowth of Fuji Heavy Industries which was the Nakajima Aircrcrft Company. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (builders of the Zero) and Nakajima were the two primary aircraft companies for the Japanese in WW-II.

Suzuki, like Toyota, was originally a loom manufacturer, but ventured into auto production during the late 1930's when the Japanese gov't was encouraging production, but didn't get past the prototype stage. After the war, they went back to textile looms. In the early 1950's, they returned to vehicles, after the textile market collapsed.

Yamaha was a musical instrument company that dates from 1887. During WW-II, the company produced components for Japanese aircraft. Yamaha Motor was formed in 1955.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries started as a shipyard in 1887. Kawasaki diversified in to locomotives and aircraft during and after the Russo-Japanese war. In the 1930, they produced cars, trucks and buses. The Japanese war in China was a major market for their locomotives. They were a major Japanese shipyard for WW-II.

Mitsubishi originated as a shipyard in 1870 and pretty much became the GE of Japan by the turn of the century.

 

[akbeemer]

Between WWII and the Korean War my dad was assigned to Kawasaki Heavy Inddustries in Yokohama, Japan. He was part of an American military team assigned to oversee and regulate the activities of Kawasaki. This was evidently common throughout Japanese industry to ensure they were behaving as expected. Kawasaki at the time was converting military vehicles such as tanks & trucks to vehicles that could be used for peacetime purposes. Too bad he couldn't hang on to a piece of the company. I'm told that when we left Japan I could speak passable Japanese that I'd learned from my nanny; now, not a word.

 

[classicvw]

I can remember my stepdad telling me about one town they eventually took in Italy. The unit he was in at the time had about 200 soldiers. 13 of them survived that particular battle.

No wonder they had problems dealing with civilian life. Think they call that PTSD these days. And a reason I do what I can to support veterans organizations now.

It's funny how when I was much younger I saw examples of PTSD but didn't put it all together until later in life. Probably because it wasn't openly talked about.

When I was a teenager I worked as a security guard in a factory. There was one guy whose hands shook all the time and he didn't talk much, a very nice guy but I though very strange until I overheard talk that he was in the retreat from the Philippines and using a bulldozer hurriedly buried our vehicles and equipment in the sand to keep the gear from the advancing Japanese, but he was taken prisoner.

There was another guy who always was at the bar of a bar/ restaurant I frequented with other fellow cops at the beginning of my career. He was a big guy, always kept his head down while drinking at the bar and never spoke, he seemed always afraid of something. One of my buddies one day told me to walk past him and look at his hands. All his fingers seemed deformed. They told me he was a POW of the North Koreans and they yanked all his fingernails out

My father in law, age 89, has never slept thru the night. My wife vividly remembers as a child, the " night terrors" he would go thru all the time. He was in the first wave ashore on Iwo Jima and his unit suffered 92% casualties. Out of 242 in his unit, 8 walked off the island after 21 days of continuous combat. He must be suffering from survivors guilt always wondering why he survived and the other 17-19 yr olds didn't. Nowadays he cannot remember something from this morning, but he remembers the names of all the Marines he was with that died and tell you where they were from.

My father went thru England and France in the army in WWII, and was partially disabled, my brother lost half his hearing from his naval guns during Korea, and my sisters husband died from agent orange exposure in Vietnam after suffering for 17 years.

I too, support several veterans causes like the wounded warrior project.

 

[squeaky4432]

Add one more

Pat Sajak joined the US Army in 1968 and served in Vietnam.




Bob Schrader

 

[lkchris]

Thinking of Hollywood as providing role models, etc., bugs the heck out of me, but maybe that's only me.

Here's a quote from the Wikipedia article on the 10th Mountain Division that means lots more to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_Mountain_Division

Skiing associations subsequently contend that veterans of the 10th Mountain Division had a substantial effect in the post-World War II development of skiing as a vacation industry and major sport. Ex-soldiers from the 10th laid out ski hills, designed ski lifts, became ski coaches, racers, instructors, patrollers, shop owners, and filmmakers. They wrote and published ski magazines, opened ski schools, improved ski equipment, and developed ski resorts. Up to 2,000 of the division's troops were involved in skiing-related professions after the war, and at least 60 ski resorts were founded by men of the division.

People associated with the 10th Mountain Division later went on to achieve notability in other fields. Among these are anthropologist Eric Wolf, mathematician Franz Alt, avalanche researcher and forecasting pioneer Montgomery Atwater, Congressman Les AuCoin, mountaineer and teacher who helped develop equipment for the 10th Mountain Robert Bates, noted mountaineer Fred Beckey, United States Ski Team member and Black Mountain of Maine resort co-founder Chummy Broomhall, former American track and field coach and co-founder of Nike, Inc. Bill Bowerman, former Executive Director and Sierra Club leader David R. Brower, former United States Ski Team member World War II civilian mountaineer trainer H. Adams Carter, former Senate Majority Leader and Presidential candidate Bob Dole, champion skier Dick Durrance, ski resort pioneer John Elvrum, Norwegian-American skier Sverre Engen, Olympic equestrian Earl Foster Thomson, civilian founder of the National Ski Patrol Charles Minot Dole, painter Gino Hollander, Paleoclimatologist John Imbrie, theoretical physicist Francis E. Low, US downhill ski champion Toni Matt, falconer and educator Morley Nelson, comic book artist Earl Norem, founder of National Outdoor Leadership School and The Wilderness Education Association Paul Petzoldt, world downhill ski champion Walter Prager, retired broadcasting executive William Lowell Putnam III, Massachusetts Governor Francis W. Sargent, World War II civilian ski instructor and division trainer Hannes Schneider, founder of Vail Ski Resort Pete Seibert, actor and Olympic medalist Floyd Simmons, historian and author Page Smith, members of the famous von Trapp family singers Werner von Trapp and Rupert von Trapp, civilian technical adviser Fritz Wiessner, William John Wolfgram, Olympic Ski jumper Gordon Wren, Massachusetts Congressional candidate Nathan Bech, leader of Chalk 4 during the Battle of Mogadishu Matt Eversmann, Middle East analyst, blogger, and author Andrew Exum, and author Craig Mullaney, Joseph Yorio, President and CEO of Xe Services.

Hollywood is noise compared to just Nike and Vail, let alone the rest. Other groups are similar I'm sure.

 

[kantuckid]

Same here. My son seems a better person for his service (4 years a Marine, and now 4+ years and counting as an Army Staff Sergeant - multiple tours in Iraq).

Thank your kids for serving!

Related note to: "my son seems a better person",
I'm not to turn this into a "brag on your kid thing" but reality is that those who serve are recognized as leaders in civilian jobs & as an e.g., when my kids have hired a "head hunter" to make the transition to "regular life" the honest truth is they are absolutely covered with opportunities! This happens in fields/areas that are cram packed with applicants. The trick, (if there is one) is to come home alive & well. Sadly, many do not and our children's generation has a heavy burden of this result.

 

[kantuckid]

I met john wayn at fort benning ga. in 1966 when I was 10yo visiting my uncle when he was in ocs,the green baret was filmed there.

FWIW, I didn't see JW when I did OCS that same year? Maybe I was too busy running errands

 

[SCBuckeye]

Well . . .

My kid's better than your kid!

Just kidding, I ditto the words. To those of you who served or had children that served, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Please tell your wonderful kids for me as well!

You all should be proud, and you certainly deserve our honor and thanks!

 

[kantuckid]

Comparing today, or any time since the start of college/apprentice program draft deferments is invalid. Excluding health or family reasons, able bodied young men in the WW-II era were drafted.

Relative to those trying to help........do you really wish to point a finger of disapproval at everyone that isn't in the reserves or enlisted? If so, you better look well beyond Hollywood. There's 314Million Americans with 1.43M active duty and 0.85M reserves. That leaves 311M people to point at.

IMHO, honoring the Great Depression & WW-II generation would be better done by making this country a better place than the one they left........

Point well made. My admitted reason for bring up John Wayne was simply to stir the pot. As for who was drafted during past wars-a large book could be written about such. My best friend in KS, his Dad was a great e.g.. He was exempted from the draft in WWII as he drove a truck hauling hogs in Iowa. he was young and healthy- in fact he was a pro wrestler on the side! He later spent a long career as a fireman. His career choice was, I feel ample proof that the was not one to choose the easy path or the lucrative path nor the one without hazards! many that were "connected" to the board in some way got special treatment. During the Vietnam war this was also true. I know people that got high numbers on that basis. My generation many went to grad school,taught etc. & open to scrutiny, I suppose but I'm trying to "not open that door all the way"- here!
We could easily criticize the greatest generation on the basis of various inequities in our USA society during there lives.
You could ask if my FIL was more patriotic than my own Father because he enlisted in the Army (he was in the China/Burma service era at first of war) whereas my Dad was drafted from pro baseball & got his papers while playing a game for money? Both were decorated & served in various combat until war was over, thus a moot point? Or not? Of my 5 uncles that were in Navy/WWII, one had 4 kids and drafted @ age 38 while working as a carpenter. Compare that to JW who got a hardship case...