Posted: Sep 18, 2008, 6:28 PM CST
HondoLaneNJ wrote:Especially that last one! Cheese eating surrender monkeys....
Actually, I was a bit harsh with this comment....I reacted based on some things that happened over the last few years, with regards to the war in Iraq, and the French response to it...I was wrong to say that. Maybe.
You see, my Dad was there, in WW2: he fought there...
I don't remember a lot about him: but I remember him telling me stories about how he worked with the French resistance during their uprising. Something about being part of Operation Dragoon...something about meeting with leaders from the Maquis....he had seen a lot of combat before he got to France, but the savagery he saw inflicted on those people...well....he said he never saw anything like it....until he got to Buchenwald...
I remember what he said, even back then....he said "Thats why it galls me when I hear my own people dismissing the French as cowards..."
"We are talking about a people that *never* gave up fighting the Nazi occupation....their "country" may have surrendered...but *they* didn't."
He said he saw men, women, civilians...take on Panzer divisions...*knowing* that their loved ones would be slaughtered in retribution, by the Nazis....
He told me about one day, alone....over 600 men, women, children...executed in the village of, I forget...funny sounding name...Orador-sur-Glen? Can't remember right....but he did tell me about it...all because of what the Maquis did...on D-day! Stopping tanks from getting to Normandy....
My Dad said "We were proud to help them take back Paris".
My apologies to any French folks on this board for my talking out of line....