Veteran's Day

[ron]

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day! Celebrate your freedom to drink a fine brew!

As a veteran of the United States Army, I want to thank everyone who celebrates the day and pays respects to those who can't. Have a pint (or three) in honor of those who served or who currently are serving. It means more than you might think!

Cheers!

11B2P 1/501 PIR

[jsmurphy]

Absolutlely.

[studentofbeer]

here here.

from a young'un, many thanks to those who served or are serving in our armed forces.

this fineamericanmicro is for you.

[brewmonkey]

And from one Vet to all the others out there, Thank you for your service.

Brewmonkey
11B2C2
Dco 1/52 INF(M) -1988-1994
(4th MRB/32d GMRR OPFOR)

Aco 2/137 INF(M) KSARNG 1994-1997

[jlttb]

I wonder: How much of a factor was having hundreds of thousands of American servicemen in England, and then later in Germany and throughout Europe, in opening up American taste to better beer after WWII? When did the big importers start importing?
Anyway, thanks indeed, to all the vets.

[b3s]

here's an early brew-toast to those who served...this american thanks you for your service!

[steveh]

A tip of the hat and a bow of the head. In the words of the inimitable Ernie Pyle,

"When we leave here for the next shore, there is nothing we can do for the ones beneath the wooden crosses, except perhaps to pause and murmur, 'Thanks Pal.'"

And raise a glass of your favorite in remembrance.

S.

[steveh]

Originally posted by jlttb
I wonder: How much of a factor was having hundreds of thousands of American servicemen in England, and then later in Germany and throughout Europe, in opening up American taste to better beer after WWII? When did the big importers start importing?

I don't know, there's no denying that the U.S. forces took the time to enjoy a drink when they could pause and do so (see any Bill Mauldin cartoon!). But everything I've read (WW2 history being a close second passion to beer) says that there was no real thought to contemplate and evaluate what was being consumed.

When the boys came home, all they wanted to do was (hopefully) get back to the lives they'd left behind and try to forget what they'd just experienced. Having a cold Bud (or Schmidt, or Atlas Prager...) was probably more soothing than any beer they remembered in Augsburg.

The other point to keep in mind is that many of the German breweries were destroyed by the war. The Spaten brewery's proximity to the Munich Hauptbahnhoff (main train station) put it in the line of fire, so to speak. And you can still read quotes from many a serviceman shuddering over that "bathwater they serve for beer in England!" Sorry Richard, we all know better now.

I'd wager to say that the occupying forces in the late '40s and '50s may have done more to push for imports into the 'States. After all, they didn't run as big a risk of someone taking a shot at them while imbibing!

S.

[brewmonkey]

Originally posted by steveh
A tip of the hat and a bow of the head. In the words of the inimitable Ernie Pyle,

"When we leave here for the next shore, there is nothing we can do for the ones beneath the wooden crosses, except perhaps to pause and murmur, 'Thanks Pal.'"

And raise a glass of your favorite in remembrance.

S.

Ernie Pyle is without a doubt one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. I started reading his stuff when I was only about 14 years old. Became interested in it, as my father was in the Army (I was a brat as well) and stationed at Fort Hamilton NY, where the RC center of the 77ID is named for him. Was curious as to who he was, found out how he died and it just snowballed from there.

Anyman who would rather spend time with the troops he loved and wrote about then sit at a desk in the rear and write second hand copy is a great man.

For those wondering what I am babbling about. Ernie Pyle was a war correspondent. He covered the European Theater of Operations until VE day, when he then went to the pacific to cover the war there. He was living with the soldiers of the 77 Infantry Division when he was killed by a sniper on Ie Shima.

[jsmurphy]

Ernie Pyle at Omaha Beach.


NORMANDY BEACHHEAD, June 16, 1944--I took a walk along the historic coast of Normandy in the country of France.

It was a lovely day for strolling along the seashore. Men were sleeping on the sand, some of them sleeping forever. Men were floating in the water, but they didn't know they were in the water, for they were dead.

The water was full of squishy little jellyfish about the size of your hand. Millions of them. In the center each of them had a green design exactly like a four-leaf clover. The good-luck emblem. Sure. Hell yes.

I walked for a mile and a half along the water's edge of our many-miled invasion beach. You wanted to walk slowly, for the detail on that beach was infinite.

The wreckage was vast and startling. The awful waste and destruction of war, even aside from the loss of human life, has always been one of its outstanding features to those who are in it. Anything and everything is expendable. And we did expend on our beachhead in Normandy during those first few hours.

*

For a mile out from the beach there were scores of tanks and trucks and boats that you could no longer see, for they were at the bottom of the water--swamped by overloading, or hit by shells, or sunk by mines. Most of their crews were lost.

You could see trucks tipped half over and swamped. You could see partly sunken barges, and the angled-up corners of jeeps, and small landing craft half submerged. And at low tide you could still see those vicious six-pronged iron snares that helped snag and wreck them.

On the beach itself, high and dry, were all kinds of wrecked vehicles. There were tanks that had only just made the beach before being knocked out. There were jeeps that had burned to a dull gray. There were big derricks on caterpillar treads that didn't quite make it. There were half-tracks carrying office equipment that had been made into a shambles by a single shell hit, their interiors still holding their useless equipage of smashed typewriters, telephones, office files.

There were LCTs turned completely upside down, and lying on their backs, and how they got that way I don't know. There were boats stacked on top of each other, their sides caved in, their suspension doors knocked off.

In this shoreline museum of carnage there were abandoned rolls of barbed wire and smashed bulldozers and big stacks of thrown-away lifebelts and piles of shells still waiting to be moved.

In the water floated empty life rafts and soldiers' packs and ration boxes, and mysterious oranges.

On the beach lay snarled rolls of telephone wire and big rolls of steel matting and stacks of broken, rusting rifles.

On the beach lay, expended, sufficient men and mechanism for a small war. They were gone forever now. And yet we could afford it.

We could afford it because we were on, we had our toehold, and behind us there were such enormous replacements for this wreckage on the beach that you could hardly conceive of their sum total. Men and equipment were flowing from England in such a gigantic stream that it made the waste on the beachhead seem like nothing at all, really nothing at all.

*

A few hundred yards back on the beach is a high bluff. Up there we had a tent hospital, and a barbed-wire enclosure for prisoners of war. From up there you could see far up and down the beach, in a spectacular crow's-nest view, and far out to sea.

And standing out there on the water beyond all this wreckage was the greatest armada man has ever seen. You simply could not believe the gigantic collection of ships that lay out there waiting to unload.

Looking from the bluff, it lay thick and clear to the far horizon of the sea and on beyond, and it spread out to the sides and was miles wide. Its utter enormity would move the hardest man.

As I stood up there I noticed a group of freshly taken German prisoners standing nearby. They had not yet been put in the prison cage. They were just standing there, a couple of doughboys leisurely guarding them with tommy guns.

The prisoners too were looking out to see--the same bit of sea that for months and years had been so safely empty before their gaze. Now they stood staring almost as if in a trance.

They didn't say a word to each other. They didn't need to. The expression on their faces was something forever unforgettable. In it was the final horrified acceptance of their doom.

If only all Germans could have had the rich experience of standing on the bluff and looking out across the water and seeing what their compatriots saw.

[brewmonkey]

Well today is Veterans day!

For those who may not know why we use November 11th as Veterans day, it is the day the armistice ended World War I. It was originally called Armistice Day, but changed after I believe World War II to honor all Veterans.

I am proud to have served my country and prooud of my families history of serving (All males in my family have served in the Army).

Like alot of you we have friends and family still serving our country. Many of them currently deployed to some of the most inhospitable places in the world. You don't have to like or agree with the reasons they are out there, but even if just for today please remember them and say a prayer for their safe return home.


To my buddy Matt and all his fellow Paratrooper in the 1/505 (Currently in Fallujah Iraq), be safe and get home soon. I have that beer waiting for you!



Infantryman's Prayer

Almighty God, whose will it is that we be leaders of men,
hear us as we come to you for guidance in this awesome
responsibility. Let us never forget our duty in the men whom
lead. May we instill in them the qualities of loyalty, integrity,
and duty. Grant us the patience in dealing with the mistakes
of our fellow man. Let us never forget that no man is perfect,
but that perfection for fragile humans is trying each day to
be better than the day before. Give us courage, O Lord, in the
face of danger, keep us pure in heart, clean in mind, and strong
in purpose. Remind us that wisdom is not gained in an hour,
a day, or in a year, but it is a process that continues all the
days of our lives. Keep ever before us our goal which is not
to perpetrate war, but to safeguard peace and preserve your
great gift to man, Freedom. May you always be near to guide
us in decisions, comfort us in our failures, and keep us humble
in our successes. We ask your divine blessings and leadership
as we discharge the honor and responsibility of leading men
in the service of our country. Walk close to us always,
our father, that we may not fall.
AMEN

[jsmurphy]

Amen...

J. Murphy
11B20
B 2/13 Inf. 8th ID '81-83
B 1/58th Inf. 197th Inf Bde '83-84

"Back when it was easy..."

[brewmonkey]

Originally posted by jsmurphy
Amen...

J. Murphy
11B20
B 2/13 Inf. 8th ID '81-83
B 1/58th Inf. 197th Inf Bde '83-84

"Back when it was easy..."

Holy crap, Crazy 8's and the $1.97, man they deactivated those units a LONG TIME ago! Hahahahaha :D

Geez your crusty.

[jsmurphy]

Originally posted by brewmonkey

Geez your crusty. [/B]

I take that as a compliment. :)

"Old Crusty Grunt"- Think that would make a good name for one of my homebrews?

[chazwicke]

Originally posted by jlttb
I wonder: How much of a factor was having hundreds of thousands of American servicemen in England, and then later in Germany and throughout Europe, in opening up American taste to better beer after WWII? When did the big importers start importing?
Anyway, thanks indeed, to all the vets.

I can affirm that Jack McAuliffe the first one to open a microbrewery in the USA (California) did so as a result of his having been stationed in Scotland and his enjoyment of good beer there. He opened New Albion in the late 1970s. I had the fortune to have a beer, New Albion Stout from his brewery back then that the Brickskeller has managed to get in. He is considered the progenitor of the micro movement and some of the equiptment from his brewery is now at Mendicino Brewing in Hopland CA.

I consider Veterans Day a sacred holiday and as a result all of my employees are off today.

My parents generation was the so called "Greatest Generation" The WW2 generation for whom I have the utmost respect. Most of my friends parents are buried at Arlington National Cemetary and I have been to too many funerals there lately. I also grew up during Viet Nam. (I graduated from HS in 1976) And it make me sad to even think about the lives that were wasted there. I salute all veterans today and I pray for the safe return of our guys everywhere.

[steveh]

Originally posted by brewmonkey
For those wondering what I am babbling about. Ernie Pyle was a war correspondent. He covered the European Theater of Operations until VE day, when he then went to the pacific to cover the war there. He was living with the soldiers of the 77 Infantry Division when he was killed by a sniper on Ie Shima.

Also, check out the 1945 movie, "The Story of G.I. Joe," starring Robert Mitchum and Burgess Meredith (as Ernie himself). The storyline is based on many of Pyle's frontline correspondences between 1942 and 1943 (Africa to Italy), with a good smattering of Bill Mauldin jokes tossed in for good measure (if Pyle is one of the greatest writers of the 20th, Mauldin surely is one of the greatest political cartoonists).

Although being a "war-time" movie, it's very well done - not a full-blown propoganda vehicle and director William Wellman captures the realism tightly.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0038120/

Um, there's not much beer in the movie - but there is some grappa! ;)

S.

[wortchillergoal]

I wqould like to thank brewmonkey and all those who have served. It is these people that have kept our country great.

I posted this link becfore and will do it again as I think it fits the day.
www.pressaprint.com/som/WeSupportU2.htm

Once again, thanks to all the vets.

[chazwicke]

Thanks Wort.

[ray m]

My belated thanks to you veterans on the page, and all vets across the country. Were it not for the efforts of you, this country would not be the great country it is today.

Proud to be an American!!!

Drink hearty!!!!!

[hops99]

I think it's an absolutely wonderful thing that Veteran's Day is getting the attention it deserves this year. Cheers to all the brave soldiers who have served this great country over the years. You're the REAL heroes!

[paul84043]

I did my 8 years in the army (3 active, 5 reserve) I feel for those not here in the great U.S. of A. safe and sound with a beer in the fridge.
A soldier is probably one of the loneliest jobs on earth, especially when you're in a foreign country.

I put my @ss on the line for my country and would do it again in a heartbeat.
There are many things that I do not agree with in America, but it's my god given right to disagree and not be killed for it!!!

Thanks to all who serve, and all who support them.

There is a special place in hell, right next to ex wives that don't pay child support, for draft dodging pieces of sh!t like Ol' Billy Boy, I can't keep my pants on Clinton.