[jamminbrew]

My Grandfather was an airplane mechanic in England during the war, and helped many planes for the D-Day invasion get off the ground.  He knew many pilots and crewmen who never came home.  His brothers, one a Marine, was killed in Guam, and the other a sailor, was killed at Midway. 
Freedom has a flavor, that for those who have fought and served to protect it, the protected will never taste...

[akr71]

Those guys that did that had to be some of the bravest men that ever lived.  I can't imagine what it must have been like to do that.  The world is a much better place because of their service and sacrifice!

Here, here!

My grandfather enlisted in the mid-thirties and was a wireless radio (Morse code) operator aboard Hudsons (sub-hunting aircraft) for a good portion of the war.  One story that will always stick with me was when he was stationed in near Halifax and got a call from one of his men in the middle of the night - when he went to investigate, there was a U-boat in  the harbor! They had chains across the harbor preventing them from getting too close, but felt he needed to investigate anyway - he talked a fisherman into taking him out into the harbor in his dory.  The whole time the U-boat had its spot light trained on them so my grandfather pretended to play out the fisherman's nets and got their assess back to shore.

I think I'll go pour myself another in honor of those that landed on Juno Beach and Operation Neptune.

[euge]

My pop's a Pacific Vet but I'm drinking wine today.

[phillamb168]

My second cousin on my dad's side was a fighter pilot doing escort runs into Germany. He had originally signed up with the AAC but flunked ground school. Got himself transferred to the RCAF (I have his uniform in a closet somewhere) where he passed with flying colors (har har). The AAC must have felt pretty sorry about their decision and bought him back from the RCAF for something like $1,000. We've got his AAC flight suit at my dad's house along with his service pistol, 1911A1 Colt .45. That's a hell of a gun. Anyway.

Puna, another of my relatives on my mother's side was on the Arizona when she went down. Also related, one of my first projects as a developer was buliding/launching the Pearl Harbor Survivors' Project. Check it out when you get a chance, there's some cool stuff. Also my great uncle on my mom's side was in the Pacific on a battleship for most of the war there, I don't know which ship though.

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More relevant to this thread, I'll try to find and post my pics from my two trips to the beaches at Normandy. When we went there with my dad in October we stayed the night near St Mere Eglise, the place where Red Buttons got stuck on the church steeple. Our chambres d'hôtes was partially destroyed by German tank fire when the airborne was trying to take the town. It was also across a bridge from where something like 100 paratroopers drowned to death in the swamps created when the Germans flooded the land surrounding the area. Again I'll try to post pics of that.

Edit: found a few photos but not all, unfortunately. You can check out the Veteran's Day post from last year for st mere eglise and others: http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=4542.msg52411#msg52411