Did the heroes of D-Day not think of sacrifice?

In other words, did the soldiers who stormed the beach not think of God when they stormed the beach of German crossfire?

D-Day is when The Allies stormed Normandy Beach in the face of German crossfire. The front-line faced certain death, so what made them storm the beach? If it was not their faith in God then what them face almost certain death?

Whether you believe in God or not, they did present a sacrifice greater than themselves.

someone needs to go take a history class.

Probably wanted to do their part in protecting their country (and regretting it). I doubt they viewed it completely as a sacrifice - I'm sure they're hoping to make it rather than assume that they're going to die. I'm sure many were praying to god, just like the Germans were as they saw the landing craft approach.

I'm sure most of them would have gladly turned the landing craft around and headed home but it wasn't an option. They likely would have been physically forced to go or shot for refusing to go.

I'm pretty sure there were plenty of atheists who died on that beach as well...

Many people in life have varying reasons that they're willing to die for. In that case, some for freedom, maybe some for honor, maybe some for prestige, or country? Or maybe simply because they were enlisted and were following orders? Or for their brothers in arms besides them?

A lot of different reasons people sacrifice.

The whole point of military training is to make you turn of your brain and follow the orders of your superiors.

dum thread iz dum

No, it isn't. That may work in some situations but in the vast majority of combat situations shutting off your brain so you can blindly follow orders is a great way to get yourself killed if your superiors are killed and now you have to take command. Military training is about teamwork, trust, learning your job, and learning how to survive.

Pointless thread, and the vast majority of the soldiers in Operation Overlord survived.

OWikipedia: O (named o plural oes) is the fifteenth letter and a vowel in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. →

they were certainly courageous in storming the beach, but soldiers get trained to live instead of die and that's the attitude that i'm assuming many of them had.

Must be history day at camp stupid.

More like, "We have a job to do. So let's get it done."

I'm sure the true heroes of D-Day thought often of the terrible sacrifice that they were being asked to make.

Yet, as venerable warriors do, they stood their ground in spite of the odds against them.

They faced the invading Allied scum with courage and equanimity!

:P

wtf does god have to do with any of this?

Nowadays it is, when we no longer even have proper battles and hardly anyone ever dies. In the past you had to order people to go to almost certain death. Modern soldiers would most likely defy such orders.

During WWII when the fighting started the officers were often forced to go to each rookie single soldier and remind him that he's supposed to shoot back.

Why the hell are you asking us? How are we supposed to know what they were thinking? Track down the memoirs of the survivors, or find notes written beforehand by the people who were killed, then you'll be closer to getting the straight story.

Nothing except for a shameless attempt at creating a religion thread so tc can feel good about having a thread with a lot of posts.

This thread is so dumb, but I'll respond to it anyway. I'm guessing you're referring to Omaha Beach? The real answer is that they were expecting little or no resistance, and were taken by surprise. Bombers and naval gunfire were supposed to have taken out the German bunkers before they ever landed, but missed having hit too far inland. They were also supposed have landed with a large number of amphibious tanks supporting them, but most of the tanks were blown up or sank in rough seas before they got to shore. What happened at Omaha Beach was not intentional. No one planned to go charging in like that with Germans shooting at them. It was basically soldiers compensating for a series of screw ups so that the invasion wouldn't be jeopardized. And that was actually just one part of the invasion. Things went more smoothly at the other beaches.

Nailed it. Thank you.

They risked their lives to make the world a better place, they deserve a day to be remembered, and other Veterans for that matter.

No criticism to them though, but the Soviets were already marching to Berlin before we set one foot in France, and less than a year from D-Day the Red Army flag was sitting on top the Reichstag.

Do you think he thought about God when he made this shitty thread?