I have respect for the men who fought in WWII

[Mandinka2]

Every American soldier deserves your respect and if it takes a DVD to get than that's fine. But it is sad that the world has come to that.

Robert Jan might want to read up on his history.

Im curious as to what problem you have with what he stated. WW1 was much much worse IMO (except for the Russian front).

 

[ariolanine]

Im curious as to what problem you have with what he stated. WW1 was much much worse IMO (except for the Russian front).

He said this "the Russians both made more sacrifices, and did more harm to the nazis than the usa."

The Russians didn't make any sacrifices because a sacrifice requires choice. The Nazis invaded Russia and were hellbent on destroying communism. The Russians had no choice but to fight. Winter weather was the primary reason for the Nazi retreat. Sacrifice is what the Americans and Canadians did. A farm boy in Iowa was under no direct threat from the Axis powers but millions like him went to fight. Without the Americans WWII would have taken much longer and it would have probably been won by the Axis powers. Remember, Russia was not fighting Japan. Without the US occupying them in the Pacific, they would have been free to attack whomever they chose.

 

[hooch]

Read "Citizen Soldier" by Stephen Ambrose. Its about the US soldiers (including E company from Band Of Brothers) on the front lines in Europe from June 7th 1944 until Germany's surrender in May 1945. The sacrifices they made and the conditions they lived (or Died) in are almost unimaginable. Awesome reading.........

 

[Y_lifter]

On the Russian front...
Starvation, disease and Freezing to death killed
more soldiers than did bullets and bombs..

 

[NAWFkappy]

Credit to the russians though...all they had to do is hold out through the winter and they did it. Some countries couldnt even manage that, and were just steamrolled. Imagine Normandy if the Nazis werent fighting Russia at the same time...

 

[Kalashnikov]

Without major blunders for the German army, such as the one at Stalingrad, things could have turned out quite different.

The amount of military personnel killed at Stalingrad:

Germans- Almost 400,000. (250,000 of these were surrounded in the kessel, 90,000 taken into captivity and only 5,000 returned to Germany).

Russians- About 700,000
Italians- lost 130,000 men out of their 200,000 man army.
Hungarians- about 120,000
Rumanians- about 200,000 around Stalingrad.

Total- well over 1,500,000 dead.

I don't think that anyone will argue that Stalingrad was not the bloodiest single battle in the history of warfare. It was the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.

 

[Tarheel]

A farm boy in Iowa was under no direct threat from the Axis powers but millions like him went to fight.

Or farm boys like my grandfather and his 2 brothers. His brothers both went to the Pacific, the oldest one came back. As he nonchalantely puts it "oh I was in Europe for a while, fought in about five major battles. Battle of the Bulge and the Ardennes and around. Got my leg shot up pretty bad too.

He was an infantryman riding with Patton's 3rd, and he was also in another army for a while (maybe the 7th?). Helped liberate some concentration camps as well as those battles (Dachau, Bergen Belsen, maybe a few smaller less known ones).

Everything ya'll have said would make him feel really good. He hardly ever talks about any of it though as many veterans dont. He just got cable TV about 3 weeks ago and he's been watching a lot of History Channel though, and I'm sure thats been hard at times for him. If you watch The Color Of War or whatever (the actual films from WWII) and you see a couple guys walking into the bombed out ruins of a little town, thats what he did most of the time. They would ride on tanks or in half-tracks untill things got messy or it looked like a trap up ahead, and then they'd get off and go investigate.

 

[ariolanine]

Credit to the russians though...all they had to do is hold out through the winter and they did it. Some countries couldnt even manage that, and were just steamrolled. Imagine Normandy if the Nazis werent fighting Russia at the same time...

That wouldn't have changed the fact that Hitler didn't believe the allies would attack there.

 

[Testosterone boy]

You guys are displaying typical ignorance by claiming majority credit for defeating the Third Reich.

Our "sacrifice" was no greater than that of the Russians, it was much less. We had no real choice but to join and use England for all it was worth. The option was fighting the Nazis on home ground, a stupid alternative.

Any mature historian would not assign credit unduly to the US.

Duty in the Western front was a pleasure compared to the Eastern front.....for the Germans.

 

[Spartacus]

Moral of story...if any? We actually got along better with Germans than with Japanese.



Yea....you have to respect the war vets. [/B]

....somewhere in the neighbor hood of 40% of the US GIs in europe were of German descent..anyone know where Eisenhower's family was from?