The gif embodies the mentality of myopic fools that see geopolitical complexities as puzzles that can be solved in the time it takes to watch a 30 minute TV episode.
On June 6, 1944, a 56-year-old general with a secret walked onto Utah Beach under fire, armed with a cane and a pistol.
The secret: his heart was failing. He had hidden it from the army doctors so they wouldn't pull him from the mission.
His name was Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Son of the President. He had begged three separate times to lead the first wave ashore at Normandy before his commanders finally said yes.
When his landing craft drifted 2,000 yards off course, every instinct said redirect the following waves to the correct zone. Instead, Roosevelt walked the beach himself, alone, under artillery fire, cane in hand, reading the terrain.
His verdict: "We'll start the war from right here."
He then stood on that beach and personally greeted every regiment that landed after him, pointing them inland, cracking jokes under shellfire, steadying 18-year-olds who had never seen combat. He did this for hours.
Years later, Omar Bradley was asked to name the single most heroic act he had ever witnessed in combat.
His answer, without hesitation: "Ted Roosevelt on Utah Beach."
Roosevelt's son, Captain Quentin Roosevelt II, also landed at Normandy that same morning. He was named after his uncle, Quentin Roosevelt, who had been shot down as a fighter pilot over France in World War I.
Three generations. Three wars. One family.
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. died in his sleep 36 days later. Heart attack. The thing he had been hiding finally won. He never learned he had been awarded the Medal of Honor.
He was buried at the Normandy American Cemetery.
In 1955, his family had his brother Quentin, killed in WWI, exhumed from where he fell in France and reinterred right beside him. Quentin is the only World War I soldier buried there.
Two brothers. Two world wars. The same French soil.
Their father had once said: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
Both of his sons did exactly that.
@Reil76 Sounds like paradise. Will you take the folks we deport? We'll give you $1000 Canadian for each and pay transportation. But, warning up front: no give backs please.
@PrimeVideo Check it out. It's not bad at all. Kind of a mix of a gumshoe detective and a crusty super hero. The New York 1930s setting and some of caricatures of scene and character are incisive.
"U.S. payrolls rose by 172,000 in May, much more than expected; unemployment at 4.3%" Good news, plenty of jobs. You're going to pay a premium for quality labor. Inflation pressure is real beyond the price of oil.
https://t.co/Ak58MlURLi