3000 innocents killed, 6000 injured by a terrorist group whose name should never be spoken again. From the ashes, and an unwavering faith in God, America rebuilds…and remembers.
From the ashes…
Not forgotten, EVER!
9/11 Memorial & Museum NYC
On June 6, 1944, more than 150,000 American, British and Canadian troops landed on the shores of northern France as part of D-Day, a major turning point in World War II that helped lead to the defeat of Nazi forces in Europe. About 2,500 of the 73,000 U.S. soldiers who fought in the battle died. Even at that time, the soldiers understood the Normandy invasion was pivotal to winning the war, a do or die situation.
Allied land forces came from the United States, Britain, Canada, and Free French forces. In the weeks following the invasion, Polish forces and contingents from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece and the Netherlands participated in the ground campaign; most also provided air and naval support alongside elements of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and the Royal Norwegian Navy.
Into the jaws of death. The U.S. Coast Guard caption identifies the unit as Company E, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division.
Photo U.S. Army/National Archives
The town of Caen, France freed by the Allies. AP Images
Reflecting Pool at Normandy American Cemetery in France
Normandy American Cemetery is the final resting place to more than 9,000 Americans that gave their lives in World War II.
NOT FORGOTTEN !
April Fools’ Day is a yearly observance on the first of April during which pranks and silly behavior are socially sanctioned and merriment is supposed to reign. Customary practices range from simple practical jokes played on friends, family, and coworkers to elaborate media hoaxes concocted for mass consumption.
It’s a day of sanctioned pranks and gags, jests and jokes and hoaxes. Dating back hundreds of years and recognized in countries all over the world, April Fools’ Day (a.k.a. All Fools’ Day) gives credible media sources an excuse to produce “fake news” and radio DJs permission to hoodwink their loyal listeners.
Whether it’s strategically placed whoopee cushions, or elaborately concocted tall tales told to trick others, April Fools’ Day jokers mark the day on their calendar annually, so beware April 1 or be fooled.
Do you partake in April Fool’s Day pranks ?
By Caroline Picard & Good Housekeeping
Unbelievable photos from 100 years ago. How far we have come.
This year has brought us sloth pool floats, a couple known as J-Rod, and masked celebrities singing in monster costumes, but all of these concepts would sound totally foreign a century ago. Back in 1919, Americans drove their Model T’s to see silent movies and dealt with new-fangled inventions toasters and zippers. It’s safe to say a lot has changed since then.
Peace to all my brother veteran’s on this day.
No, it’s not a new strain of flu. No, not a new form of mad cow disease. OK, for those who don’t reside in the U.S., March Madness is something that happens to men and women, boys and girls, who follow U.S. college basketball. You know the game with the hoops and the court and the running up and down said court, to the yells, screams and shouts of the thousands of said followers in the stands, or at home screaming at their tv’s, phones, at eateries, taverns, or anywhere else a signal can be snatched from the air. It’s a game of basketball that you’d think would determine who rules the universe for the next 52 weeks. It’s a tournament, ok? That’s all. It begins with 64 college teams and ends with the last 2 teams battling for all the marbles, the championship, the bragging rights, the ……Well, you get it by now. Play has already started. By now, half the teams have been sent packing, waiting until maybe next year, or not.
Many millions of dollars are wagered on the games. Probably half are done so in office pools, bookies, friendly wagers, etc. More importantly is the pride of winning and the later “agony of defeat” that all but 1 team will suffer. There is no cure for this ailment, but there is a salve to make it bearable. It’s beer, of course. Quaffed in quantities that seemingly make’s any loss bearable. Followed by the cursory, “Just wait until next year”. If you haven’t heard from a friend for the past few days, that friend might just be in the clutches of this madness. It might be best to just wait it out…..or maybe just have a brewski yourself. Happy March Madness Month!
(50 years ago, I too was in Vietnam as an Infantryman who also carried my platoon’s radio. I thank God I never had to walk point, the first one to walk down an unfamiliar path. But, as it was, I carried a large radio and tall antenna on my backpack. A very inviting target for the enemy to shoot. I was terrified the whole year of 1970. The story below demonstrates the courage shown by medics to every soldier ever wounded in combat. Medics are one of the most admired men to ever walk the battlefield. Many were conscientious objectors who didn’t carry a weapon because of their beliefs. This is one story of thousands just like it. March 29 is Vietnam Veteran’s Day.
By Kate Santich, Orlando Sentinel
COCOA, Fla. – Dennis Joyner had to wait 50 years to thank the man who saved his life in Vietnam.
Joyner, a Longwood resident who is now 70, was a 20-year-old infantryman with a wife and newborn son on June 26, 1969, when he tripped a land mine while on patrol. The explosion blew off one of his legs and shredded the other so badly it had to be amputated. It took off his left arm below the elbow.
He might have bled to death or died of shock or infection. But a young medic with a Tennessee accent sprinted to his side, helping to tie a series of tourniquets around his limbs, administering morphine and ferrying him to a medevac helicopter.
On Friday, at the Old Florida Grill & Oyster House near Cocoa, one of Dewey “Doc” Hayes’ favorite haunts, Joyner finally got the chance he’d wanted for half a century.
The words rushed out in a torrent.
“Thank you! Thank you!” he said, his body shaking with emotion as Hayes, now 70 too, embraced him.
“I’ve been trying to find you for so damn long,” Joyner said. “You been hiding?”
After five surgeries and five months in various hospitals, Joyner had gone back to college before working as a court administrator in Pennsylvania and as a volunteer for the Disabled American Veterans, the organization created by Congress to help wounded vets and their families. In 1977, he was named the nation’s “Handicapped American of the Year,” and he served as national commander of the DAV in 1983 and ’84, work he continues to this day.
He moved to Seminole County in 1989, eventually becoming supervisor of elections there. Hayes, meanwhile, had gone back to Tennessee, working construction and driving trucks before relocating to Brevard County in 1997 to escape the ice and snow. He had wondered about Joyner over the years, but he was never sure he wanted to revisit the memories.
“All this time, we were living just a couple of counties apart,” said Joyner, shaking his head at the man across the table. “All this time, I just wanted to thank him for saving my life.”
Both had been drafted into service. Both were young and terrified.
On that afternoon in the Mekong Delta jungle, Joyner – a former high school quarterback and baseball pitcher – had been ordered to walk point, leading the way along a narrow path. Maybe he stepped on something. Maybe there was a booby-trapped branched he had brushed aside.
“I was 200 yards from him,” Hayes said. “I heard the explosion and I took off running (toward the sound) … Here I was a kid fresh out of the tobacco fields … It wasn’t the worst I seen, but it was the worst I seen that survived.”
Joyner doesn’t remember the explosion, only landing a split second later and seeing his body torn apart.
“I immediately started screaming, wanting to die, because I could see what was wrong,” Joyner said. “My sarge had to slap me to keep me from going into shock. Told me I had a lot to live for.”
He remembers Hayes giving him morphine. After that, the events turn blurry.
Joyner always considered himself lucky to have survived, not that he didn’t struggle with some of the memories or with anger over the depth of his injuries. But in traveling the world, in giving inspirational talks, in laying the wreath one Veterans Day at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, he has come to appreciate his extraordinary life.
“I mean, I lost three limbs – boom! They’re blown off,” he said. “But that’s all that’s wrong with me. … I’ve had a good life.”
Hayes would have nightmares for years, though they come less often now. Once he made it out of Vietnam, he wanted nothing more to do with medicine.
Both men divorced and remarried. Both had children – Joyner three and Hayes four. But while Joyner searched and found several of the soldiers from his unit, Hayes never looked. When a fellow infantryman wrote him last fall on Joyner’s behalf, Hayes almost threw it away.
“I don’t know who the hell this guy is,” he thought. But he opened it anyway.
Inside, he found Joyner’s phone number and a plea to call him.
The two have chatted by phone a couple of times, but, they said, it’s not the same as being face to face.
“In my eyes, you’re a hero,” Joyner said.
“Nah,” Hayes said. “The real heroes are the 58,000 on that (Vietnam Veterans Memorial) wall. … They’re the ones who didn’t make it home.”
March is the month when we take the time to look back and honor the many achievements of women through history and the vast strides made by women today. Learn more about some of the world’s greatest women, the struggle for women’s rights, and a bit about the history of women’s history.
Before 1970, women’s history was rarely the subject of serious study. As historian Mary Beth Norton recalls, “only one or two scholars would have identified themselves as women’s historians, and no formal doctoral training in the subject was available anywhere in the country.” Since then, however, the field has undergone a metamorphosis. Today almost every college offers women’s history courses and most major graduate programs offer doctoral degrees in the field.
The Women’s Movement
Two significant factors contributed to the emergence of women’s history. The women’s movement of the sixties caused women to question their invisibility in traditional American history texts. The movement also raised the aspirations as well as the opportunities of women, and produced a growing number of female historians. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, one of the early women’s historians, has remarked that “without question, our first inspiration was political. Aroused by feminist charges of economic and political discrimination . . . we turned to our history to trace the origins of women’s second-class status.”
New Social History
Women’s history was also part of a larger movement that transformed the study of history in the United States. “History” had traditionally meant political history—a chronicle of the key political events and of the leaders, primarily men, who influenced them. But by the 1970s “the new social history” began replacing the older style. Emphasis shifted to a broader spectrum of American life, including such topics as the history of urban life, public health, ethnicity, the media, and poverty.
The Personal Is Political
Since women rarely held leadership positions and until recently had only a marginal influence on politics, the new history, with its emphasis on the sociological and the ordinary, was an ideal vehicle for presenting women’s history. It has covered such subjects as the history of women’s education, birth control, housework, marriage, sexuality, and child rearing. As the field has grown, women’s historians realized that their definition of history needed to expand as well—it focused primarily on white middle-class experience and neglected the full racial and socio-economic spectrum of women.
Women’s History Month
The public celebration of women’s history in this country began in 1978 as “Women’s History Week” in Sonoma County, California. The week including March 8, International Women’s Day, was selected. In 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) co-sponsored a joint Congressional resolution proclaiming a national Women’s History Week. In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a month, and March was declared Women’s History Month.
To read more about Women’s History Month, and some of the world most accomplished women, go to :
