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| "Into the Jaws of Death" (D-Day Photo) |
the 149th Combat Engineers walked down to Omaha
Beach to retrieve his pack.
While there, he came across a most heartrending sight. A young dead soldier was lying there with his arms outstretched. Right
next to one of his hands, as if he had just put it down, was the paperback novel
Our Hearts Were Young
and Gay by Cornelia Otis
Skinner and Emily Kimbrough. This 1943 New York Times best seller tells the story of the authors’ European tour when they were fresh out of college
in the 1920s. The
contrast between this vibrant tale
and the violent ending of young D-Day lives is the kind of wake-up call that turns great generals into pacifists.
Such seemed to be the case with Dwight David Eisenhower. Right before the D-Day invasion, then-General Eisenhower sent this message to his troops: You are about to embark on
a great crusade, toward which we have striven
these many months. The eyes of the world are
upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty
loving people everywhere march with you… I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and
skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full
victory! Good Luck! And let us all beseech the
blessings of Almighty God upon this great and
noble undertaking.
However, it was also Dwight David Eisenhower who said this: When people speak to you about a preventive
war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.
And this: I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do
more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one
of these days governments had better get out of
the way and let them have it.
And, finally, this: I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only
as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its
stupidity.
Resources
http://www.army.mil/d-day/message.html
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/when_people_speak_to_you_about_a_preventive_war/147520.html
http://www.worldwar2history.info/D-Day/Eisenhower.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings
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