Good lord, man. This has to be some of the dumbest commentary I could possibly imagine considering the context.
First of all, my father was a Lt. Col. in the Army and had me fascinated by military history from a young age. I've been reading about WWII since I was a kid. I don't "need to read much more" about anything when it comes to WWII. I am well aware of the battles between the Germans and Russians and the different level of carnage that took place between them. But other than the fact you clearly like to be contradictory, WTF is the point of your post on THIS thread?!?
My initial post was making a comparison between The Greatest Generation and our current youth generation. One of which fought in the greatest war the world has ever seen, and did so basically without complaint and with incredible valor. 18 year old kids were thrust into absolute carnage and performed heroically. Meanwhile, back at home, pretty much every member of society found a way to contribute somehow someway. And now we have a culture of teenagers and 20-somethings who, as I stated above, "seek out reasons to be offended, create safe spaces, and spend their time at college protesting against their mascots". Was that not the sole and entire point of my initial post above?!?
How does the fact the Germans and Russians suffered even greater losses change the point I was making about that generation vs the millenials? Are you trying to imply that because there was greater carnage on the Eastern Front and Hitler ultimately found his final defeat there, that somehow that generation of Americans was NOT as I described above; rather they were pvssies and not deserving of the praise I was giving them in my analogy? Surely not. If not, then what difference does it make IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS THREAD who technically served final defeat to Hitler? Simply moronic response by you initially above.
Also, you're playing a pretty dumb game of semantics when you jump on people for saying the Americans did not "defeat" the *****. Of course, we are not solely deserving of credit for that. But it is quite possible Germany doesn't lose the war if Hitler doesn't make the terrible decision to engage in a two front war. Without the invasion of Normandy, there is no two front war. And without America's involvement, there likely is not an invasion of Normandy. Food for thought for you, since you seem to have such steadfast opinions on WWII and a desire to minimize the impact the US had.
YOU, Sir, said that generation of Americans won a two-front war against the Germans and Japan in WWII. Or, in your words, “defeated the ***** and the Japanese at the same time”. That’s innacurate.
I responded to, and corrected YOUR words, so you should take issue with what you wrote and how you wrote it, not against me correcting you and providing context as to why.
And I’m not minimizing American impact during WWI. I’m an objective historian that views things from a wider lense. Iwo Jima and the Pacific Theatre as a whole, were bloodbaths and it’s doubtless America did yeomans work there. However, this romanticized notion of America having defeated the ***** because of Normandy, the Western front, etc is flawed, especially since the Germans had the lionshare of their resources dedicated to the Eastern front to face the Russians. That’s where the **** hornets nest was entrenched, and most objective historians will agree that the Eastern front was at the coalface of the effort to defeat the *****.
No Theatre in WWII comes close to the carnage of Eastern front, and I gave the number of Russian dead to provide context (20-27 million killed). Stalingrad, by its damnself was the largest battle in human history, man! It had 2 million men killed, wounded or captured. After Stalingrad in 1942-43, German high command withdrew many of their forces from the Western front to replenish there losses in the East.
So, by the time the Americans stormed Normandy in 1944, they faced, for all intents and purposes, a skeleton German crew on the Western front, and the war was already pretty much won, because the Russians had the ***** practically defeated in the East.
The Russians had been going toe to toe with the Germans for 3 years and had them whipped, long before Normandy.
So, you don’t need to write a treatise on what your daddy did or what WWII books you read as a boy. I corrected your words and offered you facts. Period, end of story.
