75 years ago today

Discussion in 'West Mall' started by ShAArk92, Jun 6, 2019.

  1. ShAArk92

    ShAArk92 1,000+ Posts

    Sacrifice was made to which 99.9% of us can only imagine!

    Respect ... Gratitude ... Appreciation.
     
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  2. Clean

    Clean 5,000+ Posts

    Some of the D-Day survivors were actually able to parachute in for the ceremony. That is amazing!!
     
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  3. TxnByBirth

    TxnByBirth 1,000+ Posts

    Was fortunate enough in 2009 to go on the Band of Brothers tour to Normandy with a former member of the 506th PIR named Ed Mauser. He was 92 at the time and was absolutely amazing.

    He remembered the field he jumped into in Holland and when we were in the woods overlooking Foy he found the remnants of the foxhole he was in during the lead up to the attack.

    Awesome experience with an awesome man. He died a couple of years later so I consider myself very blessed to have met him. God bless all of those men.
     
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  4. Hollandtx

    Hollandtx 250+ Posts

    The UT Alumnae Band was chosen to play at the anniversary ceremony.
    Proud Longhorn moment. A friend is there and said the atmosphere is amazing. Everyone is being reverent and properly respectful.
     
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  5. Dionysus

    Dionysus Idoit Admin

    And I understand that many of them were barely college age kids.

    In any case, much Respect.
     
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  6. HornHuskerDad

    HornHuskerDad 5,000+ Posts

    D-Day marked the major turning point of the 20th century. It's hard to imagine what the world would be today if we hadn't liberated Europe. We owe a lot to the brave men who stormed the coast on D-Day. :usflag:
     
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  7. Horn6721

    Horn6721 10,000+ Posts

    Holland I hope we get to see some vid of the band there?
     
  8. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    One of two things would have happened. Both would have been terrible. Outcome 1 - No longer in a two-front war, Nazi Germany defeats the Soviet Union and builds the Greater German Reich Hitler described in Mein Kampf and the Nazi government began to implement in Generalplan Ost. Millions of ethnic Germans would have colonized Eastern Europe and the western portion of the USSR. The pre-1939 populations of those countries would have been "Germanized" if they were racially "pure" enough. The rest (most of them) would have been killed or if they were lucky, enslaved or expelled.

    Outcome 2 - Nazi Germany still fails to defeat the Soviet Union. The Red Army goes beyond Berlin and "liberates" Western Europe. We can get a feel for what that would have looked like by looking at Eastern Europe from 1945 - 1990. Western Europe would have become totalitarian states with their societies and economies reorganized along Marxist - Leninist lines.
     
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  9. Hollandtx

    Hollandtx 250+ Posts



    Here are some early videos from the Longhorns performance at Normandy.


    Taps, played on the very bugle from 75 years ago. The write up said the thousands that were listening turned to look at the line of veterans seated in the front row. After he played, the original bugler from the war spent several moments speaking to him privately.







    [​IMG]

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  10. Hollandtx

    Hollandtx 250+ Posts



    A large parade in Eglise de Sainte- Mere- Eglise, France (we come in around the 3-ish minute mark, but it's a nice parade) My friend said the French were chanting "Go,Horns, Go" with the band!
     
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  11. Hollandtx

    Hollandtx 250+ Posts

  12. Hollandtx

    Hollandtx 250+ Posts

    At the American Normandy Museum
    [​IMG]

    At Brittany American Cemetery

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  13. Hollandtx

    Hollandtx 250+ Posts

    Getting ready to perform at the cemetery. She said you could have heard a pin drop.


    [​IMG]

    Practice makes perfect

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  14. Hollandtx

    Hollandtx 250+ Posts

    Sorry for the duplicate "Eyes of Texas", I couldn't figure out how to delete them.
    My friend said the band director is making a video that will pull all the performances and sights together.
    It looks like an experience of a lifetime to see where so many boys and men gave their life to ensure we had a great one.
     
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  15. Horn6721

    Horn6721 10,000+ Posts

    Holland
    Thank you for taking the time to share with us.
    WE can't see the Eyes enough so no apology.
    I know that every HORNFAN thanks you.
    It was awesome for us:headbang::bevo::hookem::texasflag::headbang:
     
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  16. Horn87

    Horn87 1,000+ Posts

    can't think of a higher honor bestowed upon a band----man, that is allsome!!!
     
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  17. Monahorns

    Monahorns 5,000+ Posts

    Outcome 1 did happen in Eastern Europe but through Russification. Not widely known but the Soviets were also racists. You had to speak Russian. You couldn't follow your countries traditions or holidays. All that was wiped clean for the sake of Communism behind the Steel Curtain. Point is Eastern Europe got screwed either way, don't act like they fared any better under Russia and Stalin than they would have under Hitler.

    Outcome 2 you have more of a point. But England and France still rapidly moved toward Socialism after WW2. They are still suffering the effects today.

    Not saying the US shouldn't have fought only that bad things happened regardless. Wish we could have been more solidly against Soviets since before WW1. But we weren't and even tried our version of it in the 30s.
     
  18. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    Yes, they fared better under Russian leaders (Stalin to Gorbachev) than they would have under Hitler. As bad as the Warsaw Pact nations and their Soviet puppet-masters were, the Nazi plans for the people in those countries were worse. You don't know much about Generalplan Ost. If you did, you wouldn't have made this comment. You are right about the Soviets and the fact that they wiped out a lot of national and cultural traditions (though most of them came back after the fall of communism). However, that stuff was child's play compared to what Generalplan Ost had in store for those people.

    The big difference is that the Nazis were not only racists but ethnic cleansers and colonizers. They planned to settle millions of ethnic Germans into those countries, "Germanize" those who were ethnically suitable, enslave the others as necessary, and expel or murder everybody else (which was most of the people). As bad as your average Pole or Czech had it under communism, that plan would have been worse.

    The UK and France nationalized some industries, and it was stupid of them to do so. However, they still largely became capitalistic social democracies. There's a reason why they still exist, while the actual socialist states in the Warsaw Pact nations do not.

    LOL. Well, you're sorta doing what your typical Libertarian does. You stipulate that we should have fought, because you know how ridiculous it sounds to say otherwise knowing what you know now. However, if Libertarians and those who approach foreign policy like Libertarians do had their way in 1941, we wouldn't have fought (at least not in Europe). There was no set of circumstances that we knew back then that would have caused them to change their analysis of the situation. They would have viewed it like they viewed the Iraq War.
     
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    Last edited: Jun 9, 2019
  19. Monahorns

    Monahorns 5,000+ Posts

    You are right I haven't read Hitler's plans for East Europe. I accept that it could have been worse. But I will point out that the USSR did also move ethnic Russians into all of the countries within the USSR. They were "Russified". But you are right it could have been worse under Germany. Wouldn't argue otherwise.

    About UK and France. France was the original Communist land. Russians love France for that reason. And now the working class is rioting in the streets because of how oppressive they have been economically. The UK is in bad shape too. Yes the same political systems are in place. That has as much to do with their oppression being homegrown as much as anything else. They weren't conquered by foreign powers, so the people identify with their leaders more.

    Part of what you are talking about Libertarians has actually been a significant part of US politics since its founding. It is only recently that the voice of military restraint has been absent. To enter WW1 and WW2 and the Spanish American war before it, the politicians had to find a really convincing narrative to justify entering the war. Wilson forced the situation that led to the Lusitania sinking. Without it, he doesn't get popular support to wage war against Germany. Same with FDR and Pearl Harbor. WW2 had been going on for years before the US entered. Why? Because there was a long tradition and a sizable amount of people who believed that military restraint was important and involvement in foreign wars were very bad for the US. I happen to agree with the old Right as they were known as.

    That means I will think through each war case by case and look at the context, US interests, the US's intended goals, and the common sense but unexpected consequences. If we had more of that today, there would be less dead Americans and our security would be at least as secure as today. Plus, I see how mismanaged and wrong our military leaders have been at times not to criticize them now.

    The big question for me is what is a reasonable projection of power? What is the border we are enforcing? Today it is the entire world. That doesn't sound reasonable. In fact it sounds threatening to much of the rest of the world. I would agree with somewhere in the Atlantic and somewhere past Hawaii in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and even past our Southern border.

    If that sounds crazy. I am okay with that. I think much of what the US intelligence community and military have done over the last 30 years plus has been crazy.
     
  20. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    You need to read up on it. If you're not familiar with Generalplan Ost (which essentially means "Master Plan for the East"), it's difficult to know the real cause of WWII in Europe. Americans have an extremely Western-centric understanding of the war. The reality is that Hitler's real agenda wasn't defeating France or the UK. He did want to recover the Alsace-Lorraine region from France and wanted to keep them from interfering in his conquests, but the big agenda was a massive expansion of Germany to the East and not just to put Eastern Europe under German control but to ethnically and culturally transform them into German territory. That's what made their agenda more destructive than the Soviet Union's.

    You are correct. It's as old as the Republic, and at one time, I might have agreed with it.

    That's because we're mostly run by elected officials. Every government action has to have a convincing narrative whether it's war, domestic programs, etc. People aren't going to back a war for shits and giggles.

    You're correct. However, the reason why the advocates for restraint, isolationism, or whatever we're calling it aren't able to prevent military engagements as much now is that they were discredited with WWII. The world was changing whether we liked it or not, and sitting on the sidelines got us two big things. First, it gave Germany a lot of time to build its military from a light defensive force into a menacing giant in violation of previous treaties. Second, it gave them massive conquests to the East and the West which made dealing with the problem infinitely harder than it needed to be.

    I'm not a fan of the Treaty of Versailles, but once it was signed, the Allies looked ridiculous letting some Austrian corporal with a bad mustache wipe his *** with it. Suppose we had left a permanent, forward deployed force of troops in Europe after WWI (as we did after WWII). We could have stopped Nazi Germany once they violated the Treaty by remilitarizing the Rhineland. It literally would have saved tens of millions of lives and prevented the Holocaust, and it would have been a cakewalk compared to what we ultimately had to do.

    Of course, we did learn our lesson after WWII. That's why the post WWII-Germany was a hell of a lot easier to deal with than the post WWI-Germany. It's also why their economy didn't turn to crap.

    But there probably wouldn't be fewer dead Americans. The root problem with the libertarian or non-engagement view is that it looks at the world as it is today in a vacuum. It assumes that without US involvement, other nations would basically behave as they do now. A few bad apples like Iran and North Korea would occasionally talk some ****, but they ultimately wouldn't do anything. Nobody would care about conquest, etc. They'd have disagreements, but they wouldn't go fight and kill very much to pursue their goals. That's just absurd. It goes against human nature and all of human existence and history.

    If the US disengaged or unilaterally weakened its position, other nations would fill the void. Furthermore, it wouldn't take long before some of them used their strength to interfere with the United States and its interests. We might delay some conflicts here and there, but the endpoint would be much bigger and nastier wars (like WWII).

    This doesn't mean that no individual decision of the United States can be criticized on the merits. There's no question that we've gotten some of our moves wrong. However, the general policy of engagement and keeping ourselves in a position of overwhelming military power (whether used or not) has been good for us economically and in terms of security.

    There's a bit of hyperbole here. You make it sound like we've got millions of troops occupying the globe. We don't. We've got about 190,000 troops stationed outside the United States as of 2017. It's one of the smallest forces we've had since WWII. Having said that, can we hit anybody in the world with our military? Yes. We have ICBM in the ground, ballistic missile submarines, and B-52s with very long range. They all carry nukes and can reach anybody, so in that sense, we can project power worldwide. How would it benefit the United States to diminish that to an arbitrary marking such as the Atlantic Ocean or Hawaii? Would some feel "less threatened" by us? Sure. Is that a good thing? I guess it depends who feels less threatened and what they want.

    For example, do we want the Islamic world to feel "less threatened" by the US? Well, if they truly just wanted to live in peace in their own part of the world, I suppose that would be nice. The problem is that for that to be the case, Muslims would have to approach the world differently than they ever have. Since the time of Muhammad, it has been a religion centered heavily on conquest. If we left the Middle East alone, it's very unlikely that they'd just mellow out and live in peace, and it would be dangerous as hell to test that theory. It's a tough sell to convince people to do that just so that we can make some people feel less threatened.
     
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    Last edited: Jun 10, 2019
  21. theiioftx

    theiioftx Sponsor Deputy

    Damn Deez, that’s a long post even for you.
     
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  22. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    Lol. And I condensed some of his post to shorten mine.
     
  23. Monahorns

    Monahorns 5,000+ Posts

    I guess the propaganda has worked on you. ;)

    Well, while we play what ifs, if the US doesn't ever enter WW1 then the Versailles Treaty isn't as lopsided. The agreement would have to have been more equitable to Germany, both economically and geographically.

    This too would have saved 10s of millions of lives and prevented the Holocaust. All without spending American blood and treasure in Europe. I see that a +1 for restraint.

    But to your point, if the smallest hint of belligerence is met with equal to superior force then "the problem" doesn't grow bigger. Well, as long as you don't invade and occupy the problem nation. We see how bad that can go.

    The problem with your assessment of the libertarian view is that you assume wrong about it. Or at least what I am talking about. I fully think the US should be involved in providing security. I just think we should be careful how far we project our power and how much we decide to shoulder the burden for other nations. Plus, I look at history, there is much more US involvement with military action than there are situations where the US is threatened.

    The other thing to balance out this view is that, aligning weapons at other countries can also be perceived as escalation by the other side. When the other side feels threatened that doesn't overall improve security. That doesn't mean you assume no one wants violence. It means that you can get the thing you don't want if you aren't aware of how your actions are perceived.

    I guess it doesn't sound bad to me for other countries to be more involved in their own security. If your goal is to stay in a position of overwhelming military power across the globe, then I can posit as many problems created as you can state solved. And all of that financed by the US taxpayer. Don't get me wrong I would rather the US be the global empire than some other country, but I don't know that being the global empire is really a great thing for us or the rest of the world.

    Maybe. But you dismiss my point through the hyperbole claim and then you support my statement with details.

    All I am saying is our Navy patrols all over the world, representing a physical presence in addition to the technological capabilities you bring up. I am not saying we need to throttle down our missile ranges or anything. What I am saying is that there are only 2 non-arbitrary options. World dominance or nothing past the US border. Anything other than those 2 things are arbitrary to a degree, but I would welcome a discussion on what is most optimal.

    I think any belligerent country should know they are in danger if they attack the US or are clearly in the wrong with a US ally. But I don't think the US should escalate situations by unnecessary action. That is up for debate though.

    "The Islamic world". I don't know. I want Saudi Arabia to feel more threatened by the US for starving Yemeni citizens. Libya should have felt less threatened after Qaddafi de-weaponized and pledged to play well with others. Syria should definitely feel less threatened for protecting religious minorities. Turkey probably needs to feel more threatened, even though they are in the EU and Western countries are moving more and more Manufacturing there even while they radicalize their government. The Uighurs should be given more freedom. The Kurds the same. Iran is tough. The ayatollah needs to have a healthy fear of us, but the US should support their citizenry much more as they are a more liberal populace than they are allowed to be. But the reason Iran is ruled by the ayatollah was an over reaction to previous US intervention.

    It's way too complicated to even think that "an Islamic world" exists. Even within specific countries there are groups we should ally with and others we should be ready to fight. My goal would be to increase the groups who we can ally with and decrease the belligerent ones. But knowing full well there will always be belligerent groups and that "we" should be prepared to fight them.
     
  24. Chop

    Chop 10,000+ Posts

    This is fantastic! Would you be so kind as to re post these LHAB in Normandy posts/pics on the "Band and Cheer Stuff" thread at "In the Stands"? (or give me your authority to do so?)
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2019
  25. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    I don't think that's necessarily true. The Treaty of Versailles wasn't bad because the Allies had too much leverage. It was bad because the Allies had poor judgement. Keep in mind that the Allies had far more leverage after WWII because we were in Berlin and had destroyed the regime. We had the power to dictate all of the terms. Despite that, we handled things much better.

    And there is another outcome you have to consider. Had we not entered WWI, the German Empire may have won the war. Keep in mind that the war ended in stalemate and armistice - not the total defeat of Germany. That may have prevented Hitler from coming to power, but would it have stopped Germany's expansionist ambitions? Good chance that it wouldn't have.

    We also see how well it can go if the enemy is actually defeated. (See post-War Japan and Germany.) Real occupations don't usually go badly. We know how to do those. Politically-motivated half-assed occupations usually go badly. (See Iraq and Afghanistan.)

    That depends on what we mean by "the US." Are economic interests part of the equation?

    We generally know how we're perceived, and we generally know how countries will pretend to perceived us.

    That's fine, which is why we should be pressuring NATO countries to spend 2 percent of GDP.

    Respectfully, I don't think you
    can unless you disregard potential problems.

    But what is the alternative? That is what libertarians don't have an answer for and don't seem to care about.

    But we can't put them in danger if our military can't reach them.

    Nobody thinks that.

    The is true, but there are a lot of bad apples. And ideologically, virtually all of them are potential bad apples. It's like communism in a lot of ways. You might be able to ally with them at times, but at the end of the day, they want you dead if you don't convert. So you're always playing with fire and have to be willing and ready to blow up your so-called "ally."

    Yes, but we need to keep such "Allies" at an arm's length and not trust them very much. They flip flop very easily. (See Osama Bin Laden. See Saddam Hussein.)
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2019
  26. Monahorns

    Monahorns 5,000+ Posts

    The Allies exercised poor judgment but they did have leverage on Germany due to US presence. Without the US the Allies and Germany would have had to have had a more equitable agreement. Germany had to pay reparations for God sakes. They totally mismanaged their economy to pay it (10000% inflation), but negotiating a stalemate would have removed several of the more onerous aspects.

    Well fighting WW1 and exhausting all those resources would have ended plans for expansion at least for a while. Also, Germany didn't enter the war to expand but to protect Austria-Hungary from Russia. Russia was preparing to go into Austro-Hungary on behalf of Serbia. Germany tried to use a pre-emptive strike to end that, but they miscalculated. Then Hitler undoubtedly wouldn't had come to power for a variety of reasons. Seems like reason enough right there.

    Plus continued US involvement extended the war making Russia more ripe for the Bolshevist revolution. The Russian army was still involved in the war when the Czar was deposed. Being in the war was a big part of the Communists message against the Czar. There were many factors in play that brought about the deposing of the Czar in Feb 1918 and the Bolshevik take over in October.

    There is more going on there than you include in your comment includes. The only thing different between the occupations was not being half-assed vs being real. There are other examples in US history that bear that out too.

    I am not into economic nationalism. US citizens and the citizens of the world should be free to trade with one another as much as possible.

    We understand some nations better than others. Some we don't understand at all. I think that is self-evident.

    Yes. Agreed.

    Oh, yeah? The alternative is to roll back involvement slowly and evaluate each step of the way. There will be some optimum level, which I expect would be somewhere in between US border and across the globe.

     
  27. Horn6721

    Horn6721 10,000+ Posts

    This "We generally know how we're perceived, and we generally know how countries will pretend to perceived us." :clap:
     
  28. Dionysus

    Dionysus Idoit Admin

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  29. Hollandtx

    Hollandtx 250+ Posts

    @Chop , of course you may post them! I have one more to post though. Give me a few minutes.
     
  30. Hollandtx

    Hollandtx 250+ Posts


    This is long, but cool as you can hear how all the different instruments come together to create the Show Band of the South West!

    Totally different vibe, but this put a lump in my throat, and I may have shed a tear. "Hymn to the Fallen" When that drum comes in....

     
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