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D-Day & Pissing on Soldiers' Graves [1]

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Date: 2023-06-05  

This June 6th, the 79th anniversary of D-Day, I will be entering the hospital for a few weeks to get a stem cell transplant—my big assault on the t-cell lymphoma that invaded my body late in 2022. The high-dose chemotherapy will hopefully vanquish any remaining enemy cancer cells.

This pending experience and its timing is making me think more than usual about the Allied soldiers who faced the real D-Day, 79 years ago, and how my situation compares with theirs. We both face a potentially fatal enemy. But the analogy stops there. My chances of surviving another five years are around 40 percent. At 62, I have had a pretty good life. I have lived in four great cities, Washington D.C., New York, and Los Angeles. When I was nine, I even lived in Paris, France for two years, right next to the Eiffel Tower. I have raised two wonderful children and now I live right up against the Eastern Sierras where I can finally be enveloped by nature, which I love most. I have never been drafted into the military with the prospect of battle in either a necessary war or one fought to line the pockets of the MIC. In contrast, the soldiers who faced the the D-day invasion beaches, were young, most not having lived anything close to the full life I have. Some were volunteers, other were drafted, but all knew many of them would die or be horrifically wounded that DAY. I can only dimly imagine what the thoughts of each soldier might have been as that day grew ever closer.

On June 6th, I would appreciate anyone reading this article to spend just an hour or two reflecting on their sacrifice. Get a few young people to join you, if you can. I link my suggestion below on just one documentary (there are many) that I think gives a sobering insight into what the solders endured during that invasion.

I would like to add a few personal thoughts, which no doubt many of you share. I have always known that this country has had its fascist leaning elements and always will. Rachel Maddow’s podcast Ultra is as good an account of this as any (It is the almost completely buried story of how traitorous U.S. Senators and Congressmen conspired with German Nazis to spread pro-Hitler propaganda in America at taxpayer expense—before and during WWII). But for most of my life I always, always thought the vast majority of Americans, 99 percent, believed in democracy and the evils of totalitarian government, be it a communist or fascist regime. Given the last few years, I can no longer think that.

Fully a third or more of Americans have shown that free and fair elections no longer matter to them, if they are on the losing end. They have thus crossed the line into fascism, or as many now call it the less offensive “authoritarianism.” Senators and Congressmen who took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution are among those who aided or excused a coup attempt against American Democracy. Some, like Utah’s seditious Mike Lee, come right out and say they don’t like democracy. And then there is our former president, still unindicted for leading the coup attempt, who apparently studied Hitler’s speechs (no doubt hoping to learn how to be a more effective sociopath).

Of all the disturbing things, we have have seen in recent years, the most surprising to me is the growing disrespect by “conservatives” of American soldiers who gave their lives in battle. And the notion that being anti-fascist is could be a bad thing. Our soldiers during WWII gave everything to ride the world of fascism in Germany, Italy and Japan. Perhaps this started in 1985 when Reagan laid a wreath at the German military cemetery in Bitburg, which included graves of the murderous Waffen-SS troops. When Reagan arrived, film-maker Michael Moore and a Jewish friend, whose parents were at Auschwitz, were holding up a banner that read "We came from Michigan, USA to remind you: They killed my family."

The ultimate puzzle is how the “conservatives’ ” cult leader in 2018 could denigrate American soldiers who gave their lives and nobody on the far right seemed to care. The following, here reported in The Atlantic magazine, would have instantly terminated the career of any American politician just a few years ago:

“Trump rejected the idea of the visit [to the WWI Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris] because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.”

I have wondered what has changed to allow this previously unimaginable transformation. Perhaps the rise of the fascist elements in our country to their current level was finally made possible by the disappearance of living WWII veterans who could speak out (if they were so inclined). Or perhaps it is just that the far right knows that, given demographics and the bankruptcy of their ideas, they can no longer win free and fair elections?

Watch the free documentary D-Day at Pointe-Du-Hoc. It is a moving account of the U.S. Army's 2nd Ranger battalion, led by Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder. In the film, Rudder’s son reads an extremely emotional letter to the mother of one of his fallen soldiers, Cpl Willis C. Caperton. It made me cry. I particularly want to remember this one line: “A country must be great to call for the sacrifice of such men but America will always be great just because such men have fallen in order that the principles expressed in our Constitution might endure.”

Of the 4,414 Allied deaths on June 6th, 2,501 were Americans. Many more were gravely wounded. And the sacrifice on D-day was of course just one day. In total some 405,399 American soldiers died and another 670,846 were wounded to free the world from Axis fascism. Each and everyone of them they be remembered equallyfor their incredible sacrifice.

In a very real sense, Americans on the far right who now reject American democracy to embrace fascism and worship at the feet of a totalitarian cult leader are pissing on the graves of these brave WWII soldiers.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/5/2172875/-D-Day-Pissing-on-Soldiers-Graves

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