The Longest Day

D-Day

Extraordinary men, unheard of sacrifice. June 6, 1944 – a day that will forever be remembered as a turning point in history. More than just a military operation, it was a pivotal moment in the fight for freedom and democracy. More than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which, “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies gained a foothold in Continental Europe. The cost of lives on D-Day was high. More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 Soldiers to begin the slow, hard slog across Europe, to defeat the German war machine.

THE FIRST WAVE. The men highlighted in grey in this 1941 image died in the first wave on Omaha Beach on D-Day – nineteen from one small community in Virginia. The Bedford Boys.

Thank you to my Uncle Charlie who fought with the First Infantry Division. As part of II Corps, the division landed in Oran, Algeria on 8 November 1942 as part of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa. Elements of the division then took part in combat at Maktar, Tebourba, Medjez el Bab, the Battle of Kasserine Pass, and Gafsa. It then led the Allied assault in brutal fighting at El Guettar, Béja, and Mateur. The 1st Infantry Division was in combat in the Tunisian Campaign from 21 January 1943 to 9 May 1943, helping secure Tunisia. The campaign ended just days later, with the surrender of almost 250,000 Axis soldiers. After months of nearly continuous fighting, the division had a short rest before training for the next operation.

In July 1943, the division took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, still under the command of Major General Allen. Lieutenant General George S. Patton, commanding the U.S. Seventh Army, specifically requested the division as part of his forces for the invasion of Sicily. It was still assigned to the II Corps. In Sicily, the 1st Division saw heavy action when making amphibious landings opposed by Italian and German tanks at the Battle of Gela. The 1st Division then moved up through the center of Sicily, slogging it out through the mountains along with the 45th Infantry Division. In these mountains, the division saw some of the heaviest fighting in the entire Sicilian campaign at the Battle of Troina; some units lost more than half their strength in assaulting the mountain town. On 7 August 1943, Major General Allen was relieved of his command by Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, then commanding the II Corps. Allen was replaced by Major General Clarence R. Huebner who was, like Allen, a decorated veteran of World War I who had served with the 1st Infantry Division throughout the war.

When that campaign was over, the division returned to England, arriving there on 5 November 1943 to prepare for the eventual invasion of Normandy. One regimental combat team from 1st Infantry Division and one regimental combat team from the 29th Infantry Division as well as A, B, C companies of the 2nd Rangers Battalion and the 5th Rangers Battalion comprised the first wave of troops that assaulted German Army defenses on Omaha Beach on D-Day. The division had to run 300 yards to get to the bluffs, with some of the division’s units suffering 30 percent casualties in the first hour of the assault, and secured Formigny and Caumont in the beachhead by the end of the day. The division followed up the Saint-Lô break-through with an attack on Marigny, 27 July 1944.

The division then drove across France in a continuous offensive. It took large numbers of prisoners during the Battle of the Mons Pocket, and reached the German border at Aachen in September. The division laid siege to Aachen, taking the city after a direct assault on 21 October 1944. The 1st Division then attacked east of Aachen through the Hürtgen Forest, driving to the Ruhr, and was moved to a rear area on 7 December 1944 for refitting and rest following 6 months of combat. When the German Wacht Am Rhein offensive (commonly called the Battle of the Bulge) was launched on 16 December 1944, the division, now commanded by Major General Clift Andrus, was quickly moved to the Ardennes front. Fighting continuously from 17 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, the division helped to blunt and reverse the German offensive. Thereupon, the division, attacked and again breached the Siegfried Line, fought across the Ruhr, on 23 February 1945, and drove on to the Rhine, crossing at the Remagen bridgehead, 15–16 March. The division broke out of the bridgehead, took part in the encirclement of the Ruhr Pocket, captured Paderborn, pushed through the Harz Mountains, and was in Czechoslovakia, fighting at Kynšperk nad Ohří, Prameny, and Mnichov (Domažlice District) when the war in Europe ended. Sixteen members of the division were awarded the Medal of Honor during World War II.

Uncle Charlie ended the war with a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and six purple hearts as a master sergeant. He had seen almost continuous combat for just over three years. None of his combat wounds crippled him enough to keep him off the line for long.

As a young man, a neighbor of mine fought with Uncle Charlie as a replacement and said that he was a relentless butcher. He didn’t like Uncle Charlie. My Uncle Charlie was my grandfather’s youngest brother. Charlie suffered from severe PTSD as we know it now. Then they called it ‘combat fatigue’. He had a drinking problem, and it led to difficulty in his marriages.  But I knew him as a wonderful, kind, honorable man who put everything on the line for his country. He’s been gone for some time now. RIP MSG Charles James Lambert, US Army.

Today

VDH Speaks – American Greatness

The Strange Pandemic -One of the tenets of the early civil rights movement some 65 years ago was ending racial stereotyping.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. called for emphasizing the “content of our character” over “the color of our skin,” the subtext was “stop judging people as a faceless collective on the basis of their superficial appearance and instead look to them as individuals with unique characters.”

It is tragic that King’s plea for an integrated, assimilated society, in which race became incidental, not essential to our personas, has mostly been abandoned by the Left in favor of racial stereotyping, collective guilting, and scapegoating by race and gender.

Indeed, many of the old Confederate pathologies—fixation on racial essence, obsession with genealogy, nullification of federal laws, states’ rights, and segregated spaces and ceremonies—are now rehabilitated by woke activists.

In that larger landscape, the collective adjective and noun “white” now has also been redefined and mainstreamed as a pejorative to the point of banality.

“White” followed by a string of subsequent oppressive nouns—“rage,” “supremacy,” “privilege”—has become a twitch on campus. Diversity, equity, and inclusion deans and provosts cannot write a memo, issue a communique, or sign a directive without a reference to “white” something or other.

Like the mysterious omnipresence of transgenderism in popular culture, all of a sudden, the obsession with whites as a Satanic collective has become a national fad—a pet-rock or hula-hoop-like collective madness…more

Identify the Aircraft

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Two views of the same aircraft

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Bullet Point:

** They muddy the water to make it seem deep.  – Friedrich Nietzsche

How/Where?

Advice on Concealed Carry – In terms of carrying tools in front of the hips, generally referred to as appendix carry, we most often think of a holstered gun. Still, the advantages that apply to a pistol carried in this manner also apply to any other tool carried forward of the hips. A spare magazine carried appendix, on the support-hand side, will conceal better for most people compared to strong side carry, and it is more accessible to both hands. It is likely faster to access as well if you are wearing a closed-front garment. Some folks carry a tourniquet forward of the hips so that it is quickly accessible to either hand. Perhaps not a bad practice, though I admit I carry my tourniquet in a hip pocket.

How Many Handguns?

More advice –  There are very extreme views and responses to this question and some pros and cons to consider. Some think carrying two handguns (a primary gun and a spare backup gun- BUG), and a spare magazine or two make perfect and logical sense for self-defense. Others believe just the opposite and that it is ludicrous, downright dumb, and against the law of probability for deadly-force encounters to carry this extra weight and equipment for low-probability encounters. After all, you are already weighted down and carrying your primary gun, holster, mag pouch with extra ammo, knife, tactical flashlight, wallet, keys, cell phone, etc. You don’t even have enough pockets for everything, most pockets are small in size, and off-body carry is risky. They mention the 3-3-3 Self-Defense Rule for Deadly-Force encounters that says most attacks occur at 3 YARDS or less, in 3 SECONDS, and only 3 ROUNDS are fired, and it’s over. This is loosely based on law enforcement statistics in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports for law enforcement shootings, but I have no other evidence for civilian encounters.

A few folks rationalize that they cannot ever think of a single incident where a civilian who legally is carrying a weapon has ever needed to fire more than the usual three rounds or so in an encounter with a Bad Guy-Gal, let alone needing to carry a couple of handguns, their holsters, and much more ammo, etc. Of course, most of us can think of situations involving multiple attackers and needing a couple of magazines and maybe 20 rounds total or so.

The point is that deadly-force encounters are so variable and uncertain, with many diverse and situational elements at play, that you really never know what to expect and what is optimal for concealed carry. Can you go overboard in your excessive planning, attention to every single risk that may occur, and equipment details for usual civilian concealed carry?