cc_rider wrote: 
My Dad was on the first plane into Tokyo after Nagasaki. He said they were all scared shitless.

 cc_rider wrote: 

Don't know if you saw the Ken Burns WWII documentary, but one story this one veteran was telling about how one night, the cans went off and they were braced and fired to ward off another horrible night Banzai attack. When the sun came up they were horrified to see dead and wounded civilians, women and children strewn all over the place. They had to tend to the wounded and bury the dead by their own hands. I cannot even begin to imagine the horror.

 cc_rider wrote: 
They don't make them like him any more.

 DaveInVA wrote:  My grandfather served on the USS Boise, which earned eleven battle stars during the War. He never really talked about it, which probably says more than words could.

 mzpro5 wrote:
  I remember an interview with Eddie Arnold (Green Acres) regarding his service at Tarawa (Pacific island). I think it was before SPR came out, but when I saw the movie, my first thought was that interview with Eddie Arnold. Same situation, same horrors.

 DaveInVA wrote: 
Like the Battle of Midway? Wake Island? Fending off kamikaze attacks?

Yeah, not a barrel of monkeys, to be sure. 

 jagdriver wrote: 
I'm sure my Dad had a few hairy moments on his Navy aircraft carrier in the Pacific...

 jagdriver wrote: 

I was just thinking the same thing.

 Coaxial wrote: 
As are the experiences of the island-hoping Marines in the Pacific.

 mzpro5 wrote: 
I'd heard that. Still can't even compare to watching the door drop on the LST and you are suddenly walking across bodies as your life replays itself in your head. Beyond my comprehension.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
But imagine if we had real 3D with peripheral vision.... more of a virtual reality experience....

 jagdriver wrote: 
The beginning of the film Saving Private Ryan is as close as anyone who wasn't there is likely to get, and I'm certain it's a damn poor illustration of the reality.

 jagdriver wrote: 



It has become a bit of a cliche but the first 15-20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan is about as close as anyone that was not there can get to knowing what it was like.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
I've made quite a study of this and still cannot fathom what it might have been like to be one of those bobbing about in an LST.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
D-Day.  A day that changed the world. The Atlantic's waters were red. Not many of those folks left. We each should find ways to keep their memories alive.

1944: Operation Overlord lands allied forces in Normandy

 DaveInVA wrote: 
A special part of my childhood growing up.  We could see it from where I lived on the east side of the bay.  Memories of crossing it in fog with the glow of the special sodium lights it had.  Ferry rides across the bay going by the bridge and Alcatraz, which was still open.  These ferry boats were what was used as the police station in Nash Bridges.  Being high up on a hill side where you could overlook the bay, see the fog roll in and fill up the entire basin, with the bridge disappearing except for the very tops poking above the fog.  Its was like someone dumped dry ice into the bay. The whole panarama of seeing the peaks of the hills poking about the fluffy and sometimes roiling fog under the bright sunlight above the fog... 

Its kinda mind boggling thinking back that it still pretty new when I was a kid.  Now its a majestic lady overlooking the Bay.

The Golden Gate Bridge, a wonder of the world for 75 years

Mt St Helens erupted, in 1980
 

 
 
And this is her today...
 

 hippiechick wrote: 
This gave me chills!  They probably had not registered what had just happened. It still profoundly shocks me that this happened in the USA.  That you were there is also chilling!  What a horrible wake up call.