Renaud and Listers:
I will try and address the points that you have raised:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Renaud OLGIATI" <rolgiati@bigfoot.com>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 5:04 AM
Subject: [MV] YAK Re: [MV] D Day Wreckage on Discovery 2 night...RANT
> Ron,
>
> I'd like to add a few thoughts to your rant.
>
> - Given that its the US that have given the world the philosophy that
> monetary profit is the only way to judge a man's success, why do you
complain
> about someone making a profit, whatever the means ?
Sorry, but if you wish to maintain any pretense of being a member of
civilization, be it World, US our Euro-Centric based, some behaviors are out
of line. The "Success Indicator" that you claim is U.S. based, finds it
roots in Near East or Mediterranean areas in pre-christian time. Midevil
Europe proved that with the behavior evidenced during the Crusades, claiming
it was doing it in the name of Christianity, while it was a cozy little
arrangement among the monarchs in power to fill their treasuries and keep
the populace busy so they didn't figure out they were getting screwed and
overthrowing said monarchs.
The U.S. just figured out how to make capitalism work better than the rest
of the world.
Hence our ability to bail out the rest of the world during the two
numbered unpleasant periods in recent history. The U.S. didn't do it alone,
but without us, things would have turned out very different.
So civilized people don't put up with an "anything goes" mentality of
making money. People who prey on the young or elderly, drug runners, grave
robbers and thugs are dealt with through laws. The Nuremberg Trials weren't
perfect, but the best that could be done at the time. Then again, the winner
always get to write the history books.
War is not a neat and tidy thing. Atrocities occur in all conflicts, by
all participants. It is when it is systematic by a country that indicates
severe rot within.
I doubt that you will find many members on this list who will agree with
your first charge against the United States.
>
> - Diving/digging for battlefield scrap has been going on in Normandy since
> 1945; Up to now, I have heard no complain from you; is that because the
> bodies disturbed up to now were mainly German ?
I would think that since the areas that the Germans occupied by force
had some value and therefore were occupied by "natives". After being
liberated, I would expect that the people of each country would do what they
could to get back up on there feet again. This would include dragging off
the detrius of war left behind as the battle lines moved away from their
lands and trying to get farms and cities up and functioning. The victors
would of course have better control of bodily remains discoverd than the
losers. I do not beleive that the U.S. had any formal plans for removal of
destroyed equipment left behind in Europe. Hell, we left large amounts of
new equipment to the various governments to help them recover their
economies, and dumped huge amounts into the sea to avoid bringing it back to
the U.S. and screwing up our own economy.
I have only been outside the North America on two occasions, once to
Hawaii on my dime and once to Iceland/Greenland on the U.S. Governments dime
(not that I had much say in where the unit went). I have never been to
Normandy. My view on the outside world was based on what I read and watched
on television while growing up. Walter Cronkite on "The Twentieth Century"
TV program was my guide of pre and post war Europe and from what I remember
is the pictures of Countries that were our allies and of large cemetaries
and Graves Registration Units doing the best that they could for the remains
of all nationalities in the ruins of what were Europe. We were supposedly
"friends" and honored each others veterans, both living and dead. Apparently
this is not the case in France today.
I would imagine that during a tactical withdrawal (read BUG OUT ), your
concern of dragging your dead buddies ass out with you would usually be
lower than getting your own ass out alive. I have not been in ground combat
myself, so I will have to leave that to be addressed in greater detail by
members of the list who have BEEN THERE. The Geneva Convention goes into
great detail of why weapons must kill and not be designed to wound, thus
tying up too many players getting sidetracked from the main function of war,
namley killing the enemy and occupying ground.
>
> I know the German Government still runs the Soldatenfri edhof
organization,
> dedicated to identifying/properly burrying any German body recovered on
> ancient battlefields; maybe you should get something similar running.
>
I expect that the "You" that you refer to is the U.S. and not me. The
only you that could pull off something like that would be a monarch, not a
citizen of a country. The U.S. does have a DOD Remains lab which gets
involved in any US military remains that are found anywhere in the world.
ALL U.S. military remains from whatever period are handled with great
reverance and are properly intered after discovery. The Tomb of the Unknowns
at Arlington National Cemetary no longer contains an Unknown from the
Vietnam War. The U.S Government was able to identify the remains and that
part of the crypt now remains empty. See http://www.mdw.army.mil/FS-A04.HTM
if interested.
We take our vetrans remains very seriously here in the U.S.
> - I seem to remember the recent raising of a submarine from the War
between
> the States, and did not remember your ranting then.
> Why were you not complaining about those who raised submarine wreckage in
US
> waters, and those WITH human bodies inside ?
>
The Confedreate vessel H.L. Hunley was not raised for scrap. It was raised
by a Non profit, State chartered, federally overseen organisation to recover
both the ship and the crews remains. The remains are still inside the
vessel. The following quote is from the Hunley Orginisations web page:
"Since human remains are likely to be encountered, the greatest care has
been taken to insure that the remains are properly handled and stored until
they can be re-interred. A 45 cubic meter morgue has been installed in the
lab for this purpose. "
If you are interested in this HMV, please click on this link:
http://www.hunley.org/html/main_nav.htm
I do not complain about the Hunley's recovery, since it is a recovery,
not dragging the bottom for profit.
> - IF there are bodies there, and IF the US Government really wanted to do
> something for them, why did it not organize a proper search and burial for
> them ?
There ARE U.S. , Canadian, British, Free French and other Allied
remains on the bottom of the channel off the coast of Normandy. Operational
records list invasion participants who dissappered as " Missing in Action".
Weither they were in a DD tank that sank inroute to the beach or a landing
craft that capsised and sank with all hands or were blown to bits when it
hit a mine, their remains are there. Bodies floating on the surface were
chopped up into hamburger by explosions and propellers of incoming landing
craft. They are probably only bones with dogtags, but they are there, having
died while attempting to reach the shores of France to free it's people from
Hitler's insanity and deprivations.
The people of France OWE them better than they are getting. The people
of FRANCE should be doing more to honor these remains. The U.S. could have
left your country under the Nazi heel. These men gave their lives attempting
to save ALL of Europe from a nation of crazies. Back then we couldn't do
enough to help you. Now, YOU can't be bothered to do anything to help THEM.
>
> - And last of all, you claim there are US bodies there; the people who
were
> diving there say there were not. Do you have any evidence ?
No, I don't. My evidence is purely circumstantial and here say.
Pictures and films of D Day. Conversations with American Veterans who CLAIM
to have been there at the time and got pretty pieces of metal and ribbons
from the U.S. Government and "The Grateful People of France" for leaving
pieces of themselves and thier buddies in France, both on land, in the sea,
and in the air. Stories written by people about D Day and conversations with
people who claim that they have been to a place called France and been to a
place called Normandy, and the Extermination Camps of Belzec, Sobibor and
Treblinka. Maybe when the veterans have all passed away, we can buldoze all
the memorials, burn the books and films and photos, so that France and it's
citizens such as you, can then state that they owe these men nothing, cause
there is no "evidence" it ever happened. Think how much all that land being
taken up by those worthless cemataries will be worth as house lots. Get off
the banks of the Paraguay River and back to Normandy or you might miss this
land boom, Renaud.
I have been involved in Search and Rescue for over 25 years. I have
helped clean up after numerous aircraft crashes. Impact with trees and
terrain don't leave much more than beer can scraps and what looks like
pieces of raw chicken scattered over the landscape just minutes after
impact. Under the best of conditions, high montain cold and descication make
whole bodies look like mummies after a year. After almost 60 years
underwater....
I would believe the salvage "FROG". That he has found no "BODIES".
Because he is telling the truth. He is just pulling up, what appears to the
average Frenchman, as stuff worth selling that has been forgotten by most of
the world.
But not by ALL.
>
> Your ball,
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ron the Frog, on the banks of the Paraguay River.
> --
> Sodd's Second Law:
> Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to
occur.
> --- http://personales.conexion.com.py/~rolgiati ---
And using your termonology, I don't think I want to play ball with
you. Playing Ball, implies a team effort. Yours seems to be more a solo
game, as has been Frances over the years. So the next time La Belle France
has some problems with it's neighbors, don't call U.S., we'll call you.
Ron the American, on the banks of the Merrimack River
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 05 2001 - 00:40:35 PDT