"Here it is, another Thanksgiving Day that I won't be home," wrote U.S. Army Private Thomas D. Curry. "I hope it is the last one this way."
It was Nov. 23, 1944. The ground was snowy and frozen in and around the murderous Hurtgen Forest, at the gates of Nazi Germany.
"We still have a lot to be thankful for," Curry wrote his mother.
"Some of the things that happen over here don't seem possible."
Indeed: Curry's 83rd Infantry Division suffered 23,980 casualties during the 241 days it fought from Omaha Beach to within 60 miles of Berlin -- typical for most American units. Whole platoons, companies and regiments were shredded, with a 170 per cent casualty rate overall.
Last month I stood on Omaha Beach, contemplating the numbers.
The sky looked like black ink in water. A sharp autumn wind spit drops of rain. Far down the quiet, unadorned beach, a couple walked a dog.
Under my feet, the mustard-colored sand, once slick with red blood, felt holy. I knelt down and scooped a handful, patting it into a tin, and carefully put it in my pocket.
It was low tide. I looked at the surf, far gentler than it was on June 6, 1944, and then at the dunes. GIs had to run across 150 yards of empty beach into the teeth of German guns.
Most of the first wave didn't make it, but other kept coming behind them.
Why? Good training, sure, a fear of chickening out in front of their buddies -- and no place to go but forward.
But they also believed.
On D-Day alone there were over 10,000 American casualties, with 2,499 GIs dead before sundown. In the Battle of Normandy altogether, 37,000 Allied ground troops were killed. Another 16,714 pilots and air crewmen were lost.
The numbers rose by hundreds of thousands as the troops pushed into Germany.
Naturally, I thought of Iraq and Afghanistan, where our casualties -- statistically insignificant, if equally poignant for every family, compared to Normandy and the rest of World War Two -- have troubled us so deeply.
Why?
In the depths of that war, when casualties were in the hundreds of thousands, President Roosevelt thought the sacrifice cause for celebration. He proclaimed Nov. 23, 1944, "a national day of Thanksgiving."
Roosevelt's proclamation said:
In this year of liberation, which has seen so many millions freed from tyrannical rule, it is fitting that we give thanks with special fervor to our Heavenly Father for the mercies we have received individually and as a nation and for the blessings He has restored, through the victories of our arms and those of our allies, to His children in other lands.
For the preservation of our way of life from the threat of destruction; for the unity of spirit which has kept our Nation strong; for our abiding faith in freedom; and for the promise of an enduring peace, we should lift up our hearts in thanksgiving.
In the bitterly cold foxholes of the Hurtgen Forest, GIs most likely greeted such words with derision.
Yet they fought on. And Americans were united behind them.
Now another war president, Barack Obama, faces his first Thanksgiving with U.S. troops dying in the field.
But Americans are not feeling grateful, even though their troops freed hundreds of thousands of Afghani women and children, not to mention men, from the medieval Taliban, routed al Qaeda, and chased Osama Bin Laden and his murderous thugs into the caves of Pakistan.
All this at a cost of 927 U.S. combat deaths over eight years -- roughly equivalent to a few hour's casualties on many days in World War Two.
What's not to be grateful for?
Yet we're not.
And that's Obama's challenge: To persuade Americans that Afghanistan is as fully worth fighting as World War Two.
If he can't, then even the smallest trickle of casualties, apparently, will be too much for the country to bear.
Roosevelt, and the GIs who stormed ashore in Normandy, never had that problem.
One attack on the homeland was enough.
Read more HuffPost Thanksgiving coverage and commentary
Follow Jeff Stein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/spytalker
Tommy Sowers: Why Is Congress Mute On Afghanistan?
Eight years in, we deserve more than another executive debate of resources behind closed doors. We deserve a Congress willing to do their duty -- define an objective or bring our troops home.
/Users/lilidehen/Desktop/Riviera/Jdr uniform.jpg
These are actual photos: John D. Raikos, Capt: (part of 83rd, 329th) At 'Riviera'; and 'In Uniform'; (EuroTheatre; Silver Star; Bronze Star).
These are the real heroes. This Sat. in Petit-Langlir, Belgium, they are reenacting the '83rd March', with actual wwii Jeeps.
My father was a true hero, one of the few who survived the initial 'battle of the island', as I have found in his own writing, of details in his own words, written shortly after the war. Last U.S. Commander at Elbe River, before Russians took over.
There is much to learn, before being allowed to make a comment about war policy. Perhaps some history background, to learn about what is really going on, and what has gone on for Centuries.
Really?
Dude, wake up. it's 2009! NOT 1939.
This is NOT wartime. It is occupation time. And frankly, I'm sick and tired of those who try to justify this whole mess. Bring our troops home. NOW.
Unless...? Unless an army is needed to sit all along the pipelines so as to protect them from sabotage. Well, when would that end? Interesting article with poll you can take after reading it at the Daily Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/19/14150/5844
The word "thanksgiving" means far more than just sitting down to to eat a turkey dinner.
Thanksgiving is a powerful spiritual principle.
In the Book of Psalms it is written: "Let us come before God's presence with thanksgiving."
When we give thanks to God, we are both honoring and worshiping Him as God.
God delights in our thanksgiving in the same way an earthly father is pleased to hear his own children's expressions of gratitude
for his goodness to them.
The word todah means "thanks," "adoration." or "praise", and is derived from the verb yadah, "to give thanks", "to praise."
The root of yadah is yad, "hand." Thus, to thank or praise God is "to lift or extend one's hands" in thanks to Him.
The lifting up or raising of hands is a biblical gesture of thanksgiving.
If America didn't have a military-industrial complex (Eisenhower quote) I might agree with you.
But military capitalism (Blackwatwer, Halliburton, Raytheon, Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas etc.) has
serious reasons to prosecute wars of aggression.
Afghanistan, Irak are wars with a defensive pretext - but they are basically fought for profit and for geopolitical control reasons.
Don't compare the war against Nazism to these "wars of choice".
We have been on war-time footing ever since, with no hint of it ever ending. Ironic, 'peace loving' America remains in a perpetual state of war.
Bring 'em home. Build our own country.
WOW, what happened?
it is NOT a war.....it's an INVASION.
We have invaded Afganistan, just as we INVADED iRAQ. THESE ARE NOT WARS, BUT INVASIONS.
Finish the job that Bush screwed up.
We can deal with Al Queda's return to Afghanistan if it ever happens - which will not be for quite some time, since the civil war there will not be easily resolved. But why should our soldiers die in someone else's civil war?
"Just war?" Nonsense!