Ветеран-парашютист отмечает День рождения ВМС США и призывает бороться с тиранией

The U.S. Marine Corps needs the U.S. Navy for transport by ship and aviation support in war. To deliver paratroopers into a combat zone, the U.S. Army needs the U.S. Air Force to put them out over the Drop Zone. Additionally, all the services need all the services for humanitarian relief operations. And at some point, every service branch or corps needs each other, and every outfit deserves a birthday. The Marine Corps observes its birthday on Nov. 10, setting the date from Nov. 10, 1775, when the Navy started recruitment in a place called Tun Tavern. Yes, the Marines are proud they can trace their heraldry back to a Philadelphia brew pub where the Continental Marines formed to fight the Redcoats. When the Marines throw a party, they do it with cake, a saber to cut slices and the youngest and oldest Marine. The best Marine birthday party in the Antelope Valley (and the world!) erupts at Bravery Brewing on Nov. 10. It used to be piped in by real life Marine Drill Instructor and world-renowned actor of “Full Metal Jacket,” R. Lee Ermey of Quartz Hill, who died in 2018. The U.S. Air Force birthday is observed Sept. 17, from the day in 1947 when it became its own branch, separate from the Army, the oldest branch, dating to June 14, 1775, with the Navy following soon after, Oct. 13, 1775, preceding the Marines by less than a month in the Revolutionary War period. My branch, the Army, has its own hard core, the Airborne. We recently marked “National Airborne Day” on Aug. 16. Airborne means soldiers trained to jump from perfectly good airplanes. Gen. James “Jumping Jim” Gavin who parachuted in with the 82nd Airborne on D-Day, June 6, 1944, put it simply, “If a man will jump he will fight.” Today, plenty of women paratroopers serve. In 2002, President George W. Bush approved Aug. 16 as National Airborne Day, taking it from Aug. 16, 1940, when the Airborne Test Platoon formed at Fort Benning, Ga., the first few dozen volunteers who would hurl their bodies out of C-47 flown by the Army Air Corps. Marines and the Airborne are proud, but the U.S. military needs everybody. Marines need Navy to get to the fight. Paratroopers need the Air Force, and the air assaulters need Army lift, like helicopters. What are we going to call the “Drone Corps?” I’d say lethal. The Airborne’s origin was World War II. Whether the 101st Airborne of “Band of Brothers” fame, or 82nd Airborne, the “All American” division, we have in our history and heritage the D-Day invasion where 13,000 paratroopers parachuted in to lead the liberation of a suffering humanity in Europe. They dropped in from an armada of 821 C-47 Dakotas of the Allied Airborne Troop Command, flying over the English Channel and past the invasion beaches, code-named Utah, Omaha, Juno, Gold and Sword on the French coast. Those pilots flew their unarmed transports into a wall of Nazi antiaircraft flak shot into the skies above Normandy. Please Consider Disabling Your Ad Blocker Click Here To Learn How The paratroopers raised hell from behind the lines and Army Gen. Omar Bradley commanding American ground forces said D-Day could not have succeeded without them. With the Allies, the paratroopers fought all the way to Berlin. There were paratroopers who liberated Nazi concentration camps and helped put a full stop to the Holocaust. That is why we are proud of our history. World War II was a standout moment where Allied paratroopers, American paratroopers, became the living symbol of the good guys. I have jumped into Normandy for D-Day anniversary commemorations, and the people of France who wait on the drop zones still embrace us, great grandparents who survived Nazi occupation, and their great grandchildren. That is a pretty good party. Not all paratroopers historically have been good guys. Idi Amin of many massacres in Uganda was a paratrooper. Manuel Noriega, the U.S. trained Panamanian dictator and strong man, paratrooper. Same for Max Schmeling, who famously boxed Joe Louis, one win and one loss, was a patriotic Nazi paratrooper. As was African dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. So, jump wings are not angel wings, and not all Americans in uniform are angels. The vast majority represent our nation with pride and professionalism. On our best days, and our best efforts though, we can be “Angels from Above,”the motto of the 11th Airborne that rescued survivors from Japanese prison camps in the Philippines. The Holocaust was the most terrifying genocide, in which six million Jewish mothers, children and old people were sent to gas chambers in industrial murder factories like Auschwitz and Treblinka. But genocide has happened before and since then, in the mass starving and killing of the Armenians, in Cambodia’s killing fields, in Rwanda’s cities and countryside, and continues to happen across the maps of Africa and Asia — any place where one powerful group proposes to murder a vulnerable group. Historian Timothy Snyder is the author of “On Tyranny,” and “Blood lands,” the defining account of how homicidal and cruel Hitler and Stalin were in their overlapping murders of millions across Eastern Europe. To oppose tyranny, Snyder advises, it is important to do something. Not everyone can do everything, but everyone who can should do something. Non-governmental organizations like the International Red Cross, World Central Kitchens, the International Rescue Committee, Doctors Without Borders and many others are feeding and saving lives all over the world. A few tax-deductible bucks donated to them may not stop the evil deeds of evil people and regimes, but they do serve goodness. Proud to have served as an Airborne trooper. Proud of my Marine son, and all our brothers and sisters in all branches of service. Proud to serve with all the Americans who contribute to love and decency in a too often cruel and violent world. Editor’s Note: Dennis Anderson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker at High Desert Medical Group. An Ar my paratrooper veteran, he works on veteran and community health issues and has served on the Los Angeles County Veterans Advisory Commission.