{"id":50591,"date":"2016-06-06T04:26:36","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T04:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=50591"},"modified":"2016-06-06T04:27:10","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T04:27:10","slug":"well-start-the-war-from-right-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=50591","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We&#8217;ll Start the War From Right Here!&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>JUNE 6, 1944&#8230;..72 Years Ago Today&#8230;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mainImage\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aetherczar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/762px-Utah_Beach_Landing.jpg\" width=\"649\" height=\"511\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Seventy-two years ago over 9,000 American men, some hardly older than boys, laid down their lives on the beaches of <strong>Normandy<\/strong> in the greatest military operation in the history of the world. The white crosses stand row upon row in <strong>Colleville-sur-Mer<\/strong>, \u00a0in silent testimony of their supreme sacrifice.<\/p>\n<p>Others who scrambled ashore on bloody <strong>Omaha Beach<\/strong>, or who climbed the rocky cliffs of <strong>Pointe du Hoc<\/strong> or who parachuted behind enemy lines with the 82nd and 101st Airborne lived to fight their away across France and across the Rhine into the heartland of Germany to break the power of the <strong>Third Reich<\/strong> forever. Others who survived the terrible ordeal of <strong>D-Day<\/strong> and fought on were not so lucky and did not come home.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.<\/strong> at age fifty-six was the oldest man, the highest ranking soldier and the only general officer\u00a0in the first wave of the Normandy invasion.\u00a0Roosevelt was seriously ailing and relied on a cane; he had been refused permission to join the landings twice before his superiors finally relented. Roosevelt&#8217;s <strong>8th Regiment<\/strong> missed their objective at <strong>Utah Beach<\/strong> by a mile. There was no cover from withering German fire or prospect of swift reinforcement. Allied bombardment there had been light and the men had to cross hundreds of yards of beach to engage the enemy. When nervous subordinates asked if they should re-embark, Roosevelt seized the moment:<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>&#8220;We&#8217;ll start the war from right here!&#8221;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Heedless of enemy fire Roosevelt strode up and down the beach, reorganized units, directed landings and led his men in battle. By the end of the day the 8th Regiment had taken their sector and Roosevelt had earned the Medal of Honor.<\/p>\n<p>He died forty-four days later during the Battle of France, one among many American GIs.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cGreatest Generation\u201d is receding into history in increasing numbers with each passing year but their deeds are destined to become legend.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2today.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Theodore-Roosevelt-595x749.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JUNE 6, 1944&#8230;..72 Years Ago Today&#8230;. Seventy-two years ago over 9,000 American men, some hardly older than boys, laid down their lives on the beaches of Normandy in the greatest military operation in the history of the world. The white crosses stand row upon row in Colleville-sur-Mer, \u00a0in silent testimony of their supreme sacrifice. Others [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[361,334,39,367,426,18,217,153],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-europe","category-military","category-military-history","category-veterans","category-war","category-warriors","category-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50591"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50594,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50591\/revisions\/50594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}