Post by jdv on Jun 6, 2023 12:13:20 GMT -5
THE UNITED STATES lost over a half million KIAs in WWII, with the beginning happening today 79 years ago when allied forced invaded Nazi held France at Normandy. More than 1 out of 10 Americans would eventually fight/help wage war, while millions more at home made the materials of war possible.
The amounts of that material made are, even by today's standards, staggering. America manufactured 79,000 landing craft; 297,000 airplanes; 2.5 million trucks; 12.8 million rifles; and 190 million pairs of boots and shoes. Americans made some 89,000 tanks and tens of millions of rounds of ammo for everything from those tanks, to the 1911 .45 pistol. And that is but a smattering of the raw manufacturing output.
Yet all of that sacrifice, effort, money, and blood were done against foes that could have never taken a step on American soil. The Japanese fleet was essentially ruined after the battle of Midway, which had happened 3 years prior to D Day. The Japanese had virtually no chance of a successful invasion of the US mainland before Midway, and none after.
But the Germans never had even that much hope of invading America - they could not successfully cross the 22 miles between France and England after they rolled the French, so weak was their navy; so unprepared for large numbers of men invading by sea. They had nothing like the American Higgin's boat even if they could defeat the Americans and British at sea, which never came close to happening.
So Americans fought that war not for their own safety, but for the principals of freedom and peace. Flash forward 79 years and the state of the nation could hardly be more different. Large cities are universally dirty dangerous hell holes. Drug abuse rampant. The border is non-existent, inflation rising, and the government now multitudes larger. America's leaders on both sides of the aisle seem far more interested in their own personal gain versus any sacrifice for the nation and there's the growing suspicion that many of them cheated to win.
America is objectively less literate, less safe, less educated, and less moral than 79 years ago. America in many places now more closely resembles a 3rd world country rather than the country which won WWII.
The prosperity of the late '40's and '50's getting further and further away while behavior once considered depraved or mentally compromised by every previous human generation is now celebrated and taught.
I wonder would those men and women who sacrificed so much despite never being in danger themselves would repeat their efforts if they had known what was to come a mere 4 generations later?
