Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Memorial Day traditions and the best of the 3rd ID

I could not continue my yardwork yesterday becasue of the rain that began before 8 am and continued on and off throughout the day. So I made sure to make the most of the traditional Memorial Day offerings on TV. My favorite war movie is To Hell and Back with Audie Murphy. I love this movie - it is just amazing.

I watched as Audie Murphy fought Jerry and rose through the ranks. One of the best scenes has to be at the end with him on the 50 cal gun. And he did all of that before he was 19 years old and had been turned down by the Marines, Air Corps, Navy, and Paratroopers. According to the movie, they wanted to take him out of the combat unit but he wouldn't let them.

One of Jim's proudest possessions is his 3rd ID patch. He keeps it in his wallet. Watching this movie is part of the orientation when you enter the 3rd ID, and Jim is most proud of that service.

I also watched a little bit of (and DVR'd the rest) of the Battle of the Bulge, caught about an hour of Patton (I missed the part where he beats up on the shellshocked soldier), and woke up at the end of Midway. Midway is also one of my favorites.

What is really interesting is watching these movies with Jim because he knows about all the battles and the equipment and the details of stuff that you don't learn from the movies. When we went to see Saving Private Ryan, Jim translated through the whole movie for me since they did not use subtitles with the German. At one point in that movie, something happens and Jim leans over and says "he just called that guy an A$$(silrm". Not only does he know all of the stuff about the German equipment and battles and our equipment, he also knows all of those airplanes and all about the battles in the Pacific and the Japanese equipment. He is a walking history lesson.

So hope you all had a Happy Memorial Day and that it was much drier than mine!

1 comment:

Chuck said...

I started rewatching Band of Brothers. If you have not seen this series, you need to go and get it. My grandfather Morton was part of the 4th ID that landed at Utah Beach (the one not in Saving Private Ryan). Utah was not as not the meat grinder that Omaha was because of the 101st Airborne, E Company (aka the Band of Brothers). Their job was to take out the guns hitting that beach. The first time that I saw this, I completely started crying and Cindy had no idea why. It was because of these guys that my Grandfather did not have to go through what happened on Omaha.

My Grandfather went from Utah, to Paris and through the Bulge and died at the Siegfried line, where fragments from a tree hit by a mortar gave him is mortal wound.