D-Day June 6th, 2011, What a weekend...
 

Today is the 67th Aniversary of D-Day and it is the culmination of a great weekend for me. Thank you to all or WW II Vets for their dedicated service. They are our Greatest Generation by far!!!

On Sautrday the 4th I attended the Mid-Atlantic Air Museums World War II weekend in Reading PA. I knew it was going to be a very big event when thet made me park 4 miles away and B17s and B29s were circling overhead. Shuttle buses had to bring us in from numerous remote parking locations and I noticed license plates from CT, NY, NC & Ohio. The highlight was seeing Babe Hefron & Bill Guarnere of Band of Brothers fame again. I was lucky enough to get a chance to talk with them during breaks from their busy autograpgh and photo sessions. These are REAL heroes .... not some overpaid football players dodging DWIs and drug arrests. I couldn't think of a nicer start to a great weekend.
I'll make a separate post just on this WW II event later.

On Sunday the North East Armored Division had its 5th event of the year, a Battlday in northern NJ. Eleven of the 83 NEAD members gathered at Sherry Field and battled all day long. We had the best weather ever. Partly sunny and 70 degrees with a cool breeze. We had two new members, Jon from Jersey City & Andrew from Rockland Cty, NY, meet us their for their first battleday. Jon has a HL Panther G he is upgrading to a DBU tank and Andrew is building a Tamiya Sherman M4 kit he bought from me last winter. I loaned each one of my Tamiya tanks to use for the day. Brett & Tony drove up from Delaware just for the trigger time. See the post from Yellowshaker for more details... http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_10558475/tm.htm

On Monday June 6th, D-Day plus 67 years, I began recording the Miltary Channel's D-Day programs at 0600. Now I can enjoy the DVDs when I'm tinkering the the workshop on my tanks. I think of my WW II buddy, Ray Kooman, and all the fun I had fishing, hunting and talking about his war experiences. He is vacationing in Florida with his wife Gloria and is 88 years young. I hope he lives to be 100. God bless him! It is also the 20th Aniversary of my first date with my wife, Margaretha. Tonight I took her and my girls (Kim & Krista) out to dinner to celebrate our 20 years together.

Thank you God for a great weekend and for three dreams come true. Bob

RE: D-Day June 6th, 2011, What a weekend...
 

Bob,

I wish I could have come, its things like that I will regret not getting to see becauseof all the vet's that are passing away.While I wasin the military from 1978 to 1984 I was never in a combat theater.We will never really know what these guys went through at D-Day. I have the utmost respect for these guys from all wars and If it wasnt for there heroism, It scare's me to thinkwhat we/all of the allied forces would be doing today if the Germans/Japanese would of won, I only know that these men are dissappearing at an alarming rate and each and everyone should be remembered. One of my uncles has passed that was in the navy from WWII and I still have one that was a corpsmanwho was at the landingon D-Day. He never talks about it and I never ask out of respect for him. If anyone is ever down in Bedford Va they need to visit the D-Day memorial. Its a beatiful memorial for all that has fallen and all that is still surviving. I will visit all Military Memorials before I die out of respect to my fallen comrades.

Jim

P.S. I also covey my Thanks to all of the military's that was involved World Wide. Even as some of our polititians dont see eye to eye with all countries, it was a combined effort that repelled the Axis forces in WWII.

I apologize for missing this thread.

RE: D-Day June 6th, 2011, What a weekend...
 

Hi Jim,

Thank you for your most approriate reply. I made an open invitations a few weeks ago just to let everbody know what was going on in the northeast USA. It is a very busy time of year for all of us so mark you calandars now for next year. I know how you feel Jim. I too put off going for way too long. After Maj. Dick Winters died and seeing all the other WWII and younger vets attend the memorial service for him in March, I swore I would redouble my efforts to go to these events. Mark your calandar for next year Jim and I will meet you there. My neck still hurts from my head spinning and looking skyward. I will make a separate post soon since it deserves more than this simple post. I look forward to seeing you this weekend in Danville. Last night I found out that Wade (Rebelion13) went to Reading also. Too bad we couldn't get together for lunch or something.

Bob

RE: D-Day June 6th, 2011, What a weekend...
 

Here is a short video to give you all an idea of how big this event is and how well organized it has become. In this hangar were the WW II heroes such and Bill Guarnere & Babe Hefron of Band on Brothers fame. What a great and rare opportunity to meet and thank these guys on the weekend of D-Day. It was a great time and I hope that out NEAD group can set up there for a RC tank battle in 2012.

Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwzN_zfQRZg

RE: D-Day June 6th, 2011, What a weekend...
 

I will be there on Saturday looking forward to meeting everybody

RE: D-Day June 6th, 2011, What a weekend...
 

Wow, that looks just great, and to hook up with wild bill and hefron and get you're picture taken. That's something to remember.

I'm lucky to, having my picture taken with some of the great Norwegian ww2 heroes to, from the Oslo gang ,and some of the guy's from the Norwegian heavy water sabotage at Rjukan(anyone seen hereos from Telemark).