D-Day Overkill, and Ronald Reagan are Intertwined......read...

[mopaul]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2101752/

Under Ronald Reagan, however, the mood changed. It was Reagan who kicked off the D-Day mania when, in 1984, equipped with a backdrop chosen by Michael Deaver and a speech penned by Peggy Noonan, he lauded a band of aging U.S. Army Rangers in front of the very 130-foot rock face they had scaled with fire department grappling hooks and ladders 40 years before. Reagan spoke for a constituency that wanted to reclaim America's pride in its military strength. His farewell address in 1988 called for the revival of a feel-good history that would teach schoolchildren "who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those thirty seconds over Tokyo meant." If this rhetoric sounded fuzzy and nostalgic, it shouldn't have been surprising, since Reagan's vision of war came from Hollywood, where he had discharged his own service obligations as part of the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Corps. (At times Reagan even confused the real war with memories of films he acted in or watched, as when he "remembered" having liberated the Nazi camps.)

[lastknowngood]

1. amazing link we have two repug "war time presidents" both of

which dodged the draft and then acted as if they were war heroes.

[Ripley]

2. I think this hoopla is disrespectful to the soldiers in Iraq.

Yes, of course, we all want to honor the WWII vets for their time served. And they are dying off quickly. However, this seems to be never-ending. Every week there is something on the History Channel or Discovery about these brave fighters. Yet I never see Vietnam vets interviewed by Brokaw. And while many men and women are fighting and being horribly maimed or killed this very day in a foreign war they probably don't understand anymore since they have to know the WMD's was bullshit by now...

It is flat out wrong to make heros out of certain soldiers, and not others. And oh yeah, what about the Rosy Riveters and female pilots who made it all possible for the men to do their job?

And they complain it took so long to get their memorial! Well, hell, you guys only got your high-paying jobs back from the women who had them. You only got the GI bill. You only got affordable housing and oh, the parades and booze and women! Woo-hoo. The Vietnam vets didn't get shit, not even health care for agent orange poisoning. That's why they got a memorial!!!!!

No offense to the old guys, but enough already!

[mopaul]

3. bush mentioned every war EXCEPT vietnam in his mem. day speech

he tried very hard to associate world war 2 with his wars, and mentioned every damn war we ever had, but not one mention of vietnam. the one he dodged, and the one we didn't win

[Ripley]

4. You're kidding.

58,000 soldiers died in that fiasco and he didn't even bother to mention their sacrifice on Memorial Day??!!!

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

Ripley's gone ballistic.

[JI7]

6. and one that bush supported

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. However, Bitburgmania wasn't nearly as successful.