bitterlyclingin
Silver Member
- Aug 4, 2011
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(Dick Winters: Gone but not forgotten on this Veterans Day. What more do you need to say?)
"The Washington Post didnt report his death until January 9, and relegated the story to the obituary pages, rather than featuring a lengthy celebration on page one which is what Winterss life demanded. Indeed, we heard very little from the media about this great mans death, largely because so few in the media actually cared about his life.
If Cher had died, wed have heard endless stories within hours, with Diane Sawyer, Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, and Piers Morgan all fighting desperately to get the exclusive with Chaz.
Our media is bad, but our schools are worse. Our kids are peddled Earth Day celebrations, and cancer-awareness, drug-awareness, even clean-colon-awareness days. They get sex instruction, diversity seminars, and global-warming tutorials from Al Gore, but Veterans Day, and the stories of men like Maj. Dick Winters well, thats just not stuff with which we should be pestering our kids.
Major Winters, a longtime resident of Hershey, Pa., died at an assisted-living facility in nearby Campbelltown. But it is his life that we should all know, and the lives of the men he fought with.
Band of Brothers chronicled the men of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. The group came to be known as Easy Company, but there was nothing easy about their tour of duty. That brave band of warriors jumped into combat in June 1944, starting near the beaches of France. They fought their way through Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands and the Battle of the Bulge, all the way to Hitlers retreat the Eagles Nest tucked in the Alps above Berchtesgaden.
It was some of the toughest fighting in the European Theater. As a result of high battlefield casualties, the unit experienced heavy turnover. One Easy Company soldier later wrote that among his colleagues, the Purple Heart was not a decoration but a badge of office.
One of Easy Companys very best officers was Maj. Dick Winters. He was the kind of guy anyone would wish to call their boss. Late in the war, one of his soldiers, Floyd Talbert, wrote him a letter from an Indiana hospital, thanking him for his loyalty and leadership. You are loved and will never be forgotten by any soldier that ever served under you, Talbert wrote. I would follow you into hell."
Remembering a Soldier
"The Washington Post didnt report his death until January 9, and relegated the story to the obituary pages, rather than featuring a lengthy celebration on page one which is what Winterss life demanded. Indeed, we heard very little from the media about this great mans death, largely because so few in the media actually cared about his life.
If Cher had died, wed have heard endless stories within hours, with Diane Sawyer, Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, and Piers Morgan all fighting desperately to get the exclusive with Chaz.
Our media is bad, but our schools are worse. Our kids are peddled Earth Day celebrations, and cancer-awareness, drug-awareness, even clean-colon-awareness days. They get sex instruction, diversity seminars, and global-warming tutorials from Al Gore, but Veterans Day, and the stories of men like Maj. Dick Winters well, thats just not stuff with which we should be pestering our kids.
Major Winters, a longtime resident of Hershey, Pa., died at an assisted-living facility in nearby Campbelltown. But it is his life that we should all know, and the lives of the men he fought with.
Band of Brothers chronicled the men of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. The group came to be known as Easy Company, but there was nothing easy about their tour of duty. That brave band of warriors jumped into combat in June 1944, starting near the beaches of France. They fought their way through Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands and the Battle of the Bulge, all the way to Hitlers retreat the Eagles Nest tucked in the Alps above Berchtesgaden.
It was some of the toughest fighting in the European Theater. As a result of high battlefield casualties, the unit experienced heavy turnover. One Easy Company soldier later wrote that among his colleagues, the Purple Heart was not a decoration but a badge of office.
One of Easy Companys very best officers was Maj. Dick Winters. He was the kind of guy anyone would wish to call their boss. Late in the war, one of his soldiers, Floyd Talbert, wrote him a letter from an Indiana hospital, thanking him for his loyalty and leadership. You are loved and will never be forgotten by any soldier that ever served under you, Talbert wrote. I would follow you into hell."
Remembering a Soldier
