Story of a D-Day survivor

masraum · 09-01-2019, 07:30 AM

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/one-few-surviving-heroes-d-day-shares-his-story-180972323/

The story is long, so follow the link.

Quote:

One of the Few Surviving Heroes of D-Day Shares His Story
Army medic Ray Lambert, now 98, landed with the first assault wave on Omaha Beach. Seventy-five years later, he could be the last man standing

pwd72s · 09-01-2019, 09:51 AM

Quite a read...Time was you couldn't walk any sidewalk without passing a WWII Veteran. Now they are fading fast. We owe them much.

Cindy & I still trek to Salem Oregon's cue ball on Thursdays to play pool. Why Thursday? Because that was the day Don Malarkey could be found there, usually playing "golf" with the guys at the snooker table. He of "Easy Company" fame..when dawn broke on D-day, he was already in France.

Don left us in 2017, but there is still a memorial of sorts on the wall overlooking the snooker table. Cindy & I, and the pool hall regulars all miss talking with him. He's often a topic of conversation.

cairns · 09-01-2019, 10:29 AM

Thank you so much for posting that.

masraum · 11-21-2019, 06:36 PM

Related post.

Local WWII vet's tribute

tabs · 11-22-2019, 03:49 AM

Earlier this year in a Thrift I talked to a Pearl Harbor vet...he joined the Navy when he was 17, went to through basic training where his unit was asked if anyone could type. He answered in the affirmative and was immediately sent to Pearl Harbor as a clerk 2 weeks before the Japs attacked. He said he was in a Navy office building at the time when a bomb dropped on the building across the street. He said he spent the war as a clerk stationed at Pearl Harbor. The most endearing thing was that he has been married for 70 some odd years to the same woman. As they walked away they were holding hands and clearly were still in love...

A couple years back I was waithing at the DMV to renew my license where I struck up a conversation with another WW2 vet in his 90's who was in Normandy, landing a few days after the invasion. During the war he was an ambulance driver, where he said he had 3 ambulances shot out form under him. He said he went from Normandy to the Elbe river in Germany.

I had two friends long since passed who were in the 8Th AF where they flew missions over Germany. One was a B24 pilot and the other a P51 pilot who used to hang with Chuck Yeager.

When I was growing up all the Dads were Depression era kids and WW2 vets...So you got a real flavor of what it was really like during the Depression and WW2.

I think too many of you smoked too much dope and took too much acid and that has turned your brains into mush..for you have forgotten austerity and self sacrifice if you ever knew it. Maybe the worst thing that Greatest Fen ever did was indulge molly coddle, and pamper their Boomer children. Just look at what has happened to this great nation of ours under their watch..then their misbegotten miscreant children are no better than simpering idiots who are clueless.

What has been a rude awakening for me over the years is finding that even though many of you Boyz are smart and successful I find you all to one degree or another to be somnolent idiots. Let me clue you all it is no way to go through life being asleep at the wheel.

masraum · 11-22-2019, 03:53 AM

Tabs, what do you do since you probably don't have a lawn to gripe about? "you damn kids, get off my gravel" doesn't have the same impact.

tabs · 04:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by masraum

Tabs, what do you do since you probably don't have a lawn to gripe about? "you damn kids, get off my gravel" doesn't have the same impact.

I am just a poor retiree living on a modest pension and SS.

tabs · 11-22-2019, 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Quite a read...Time was you couldn't walk any sidewalk without passing a WWII Veteran. Now they are fading fast. We owe them much.

Cindy & I still trek to Salem Oregon's cue ball on Thursdays to play pool. Why Thursday? Because that was the day Don Malarkey could be found there, usually playing "golf" with the guys at the snooker table. He of "Easy Company" fame..when dawn broke on D-day, he was already in France.

Don left us in 2017, but there is still a memorial of sorts on the wall overlooking the snooker table. Cindy & I, and the pool hall regulars all miss talking with him. He's often a topic of conversation.

Didn't your mother warn you about falling in with people of low moral character in pool halls...they have led to the dissipation and ruin of many a good man...First you will be reading dime store novels like Captain Jimmy Whizzbang, then you will start using coarse and disrespectful language like "So is your old man," "Ain't she sweet" and "swell"..Then before you know it you will be smoking cigarettes, drinking hard liquor and hanging out with loose women...that pool hall spells nothing but trouble...

pwd72s · 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tabs

Didn't your mother warn you about falling in with people of low moral character in pool halls...they have led to the dissipation and ruin of many a good man...First you will be reading dime store novels like Captain Jimmy Whizzbang, then you will start using coarse and disrespectful language like "So is your old man," "Ain't she sweet" and "swell"..Then before you know it you will be smoking cigarettes, drinking hard liquor and hanging out with loose women...that pool hall spells nothing but trouble...

Frankly, I find people in pool halls to have a much higher moral character than a few I met in the early 911 world...much more honest about their motivation of taking money from your pocket and placing it in theirs.

You shoulda hung out in Griff's in Vegas over the past few days. Some of the best pool sharks on the planet were there for a warmup tournament...might still be there, and you might learn something, watching them in money action. The Mosconi cup begins in the Mandalay Bay convention center on Monday. 5 top USA players vs. 5 top European players, matches over several days. Too late to buy a ticket, all seats sold out.

(edit) Wait! Did you say loose women????????

Hey, I did meet Don Malarkey, one of the band of brothers, in a pool hall.

smadsen · 11-22-2019, 09:51 PM

I was growing up in San Diego in 1952 and as a five year old tagged along with the parent to a neighborhood barbeque. All the old guys (prolly age 35) were telling stories & drinking beer. The "coin of the realm" back then was, "What did you do in the war?

Our next door neighbor flew Corsair's off a carrier in the Pacific. One night on take off (no catapult) his motor quit just as he lifted off the deck. He nosed over and crashed upside-down in the dark. He was knocked senseless, but the cold water got him going and he fought his way out as the plane sank. He inflated the May-West and bobbed to the surface just in time to get pretty much runned over by the aircraft carrier. A rescue team out the stern had him in a motorized launch prepared for such occasion.

He was back flying the next day. He was 22.