Every D-Day anniversary, those of us who've worn the uniform are reminded that wherever one serves, the fates will decide who may end up in harm's way and who won't - who'll live and who'll die.
However, the criteria for deciding who'll make the ultimate sacrifice have changed dramatically over the past 69 years.
When I enlisted, while still in high school, the closest I came to danger was on a Chesapeake ferry headed for Norfolk on a choppy, rough voyage. I'd serve on the USS Montauk and ultimately join the Atlantic Reserve Fleet on Florida's St. John's River, where hundreds of destroyers and destroyer escorts were mothballed,so happy with the resurgence of christiandiorreplicahandbags. some becoming Gillette razor blades. My short and uneventful hitch was spent recording courts-martial trials.
Contrast that easy sail with that of Ed Black, formerly of Pinehurst, who was assigned to the ill-fated USS Rich, DE-695. A radioman, Ed drew the short straw. Eleven months after boot camp, his convoy duty ship was unexpectedly diverted to the D-Day invasion to make smoke off Utah Beach and shield battleships, including the USS Nevada, from German shore guns.
On June 8, while assisting the USS Glennon, which had struck a mine, the Rich hit three mines, which literally blew her to pieces. Badly wounded, Ed was thrown into the sea. He was unconscious for 31 days in an English hospital from serious head injuries. After months of hospitalization, his war was over.
I met Ed and his shipmate survivors a dozen years ago. They're a marvelous band of brothers. To a man, they suffered life-threatening injuries but never complained. (Out of 15 officers and 198 men, 91 were killed outright or died of wounds after rescue.)
On D-Day's 50th anniversary, France flew Ed to Paris to receive the Legion of Honor and 1944 Francs. At this year's memorial service at the D-Day Museum in Bedford, Va.we just have to gaze at catalogs filled with menparkacheap!, just a few men of the Rich will hold another poignant reunion.
When Ed and I served, the Navy was made up of volunteers and drafted men. My boot camp company was among the first to have African-Americans train in integrated units.Shop the latest shoxshoes on the world's largest fashion site. Discrimination was rampant.
Wesley A. Brown, the first graduating black midshipman at the Naval Academy, wouldn't be commissioned until July 6, 1949, four years after Japan surrendered. Frederick C. Branch, the first commissioned black Marine Corps officer, didn't receive his gold bars until Nov. 10, 1945, after the war ended.
I am not a fan of today's professional, all-volunteer armed forces policy. Though it was well-intended, the result has created a high-quality fighting force, but one that is unrepresentative of America. It skews disproportionately toward the poor and disadvantaged.
In World War II, you might find a Harvard student, a Duke professor or a Stanford lineman on your ship. Go over to Fort Bragg, or any naval vessel, and I promise you that's not the picture now. Since the draft was eliminated more than 40 years ago, the privileged choose to avoid the risk of war and death as never before.
During the Civil War, my ancestor, a poor farmer with a wife and three kids, joined the Union Army motivated by a bonus paid by a wealthy man, who thus avoided the draft. The wealthy man surely outlived my ancestor, who died outside Atlanta serving with Sherman's army on its march to the sea.
I see little difference in that picture today. A young enlisted kid blown up in Afghanistan, or recently in Iraq, is unlikely to be an Ivy Leaguer or even a college graduate. More likely,Choose from a wide range of authenticguccihandbags, shoulder bags and clutch bags from top brands.why garmincycling so popular in uk? he or she comes from an inner-city or poor rural area, and the ranks are disproportionately black or Hispanic.
In a time of persistent unemployment, particularly among the disadvantaged and the young, it may again be time to consider the benefits to society of some sort of universal service. Not necessarily in arms, but in a service democratically determined perhaps by lottery, as was the draft, so that the nation is served by men and women of all social strata.
On June 6, 1944, the men on the ships off Normandy and those who boarded landing craft to storm the bloody beaches knew that they were all in it together, rich and poor alike. That was true American democracy.
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