Both of my parents were in the Army in World War Two. My mother a WAC who ran up on Omaha Beach about a month after the troops landed with her typewriter in hand ( just like those guys in Saving Private Ryan). She was a secretary. One of many who were on their way to Paris like everyone else, to help set up command headquarters for our military. My dad was a young Lieutenant at the time. I know he didn't land on the first rush, he was in the Signal Corps not the Infantry, probably some time around the same time my mom hit the beach. He would never talk about it. The only thing he would ever say was he hurt his back when someone jumped on top of him in a fox hole. I know he has the silver star, don't know what for, but I do know that he too was on his way to Paris to help coordinate communications for command headquarters. That is what the Signal Corps does.
It seems back then everyone was on their way to Paris, and then "we'd take Berlin" to quote Leonard Cohen. To save the world, I guess we did that. What would have happened if all the allies had not fought to do this. If the United States had decided to stay isolationists and not join the war. Oh how terrible it would have been.
I am proud of my folks, who are no longer alive, that they helped in this great endeavor. My dad stayed in the army for a long wonderful career and my mom well she became a wife and mother but always looked back on her time in France as the most exciting in her life. They met there, in Paris,during the war. Strange what war can do.
My thoughts on the 65th anniversary of June 6th 1944, D-Day.
Susan