Gentlemen:
My wife and I have a 2nd home at Smith Mountain Lake. We have enjoyed taking guests to the D-Day Memorial and recommending a visit to people we meet.
On our visit with guests on 6/23 I was disappointed and appalled to see that a bust of Stalin had been added to the memorial to honor him.
This was a dictator just as brutal or more so than Hitler. He was an ally in WWII only because Hitler had betrayed him, and otherwise would have been fighting us along with the Germans. During his reign, he killed or starved more than 40 million people. With FOR’s help at Yalta, he and Communism enslaved over half of Europe for 45+ years after D-Day. These were the same people Hitler had enslaved and who the soldiers at Normandy were fighting to free.
I did not see any busts of Churchill, Roosevelt, or Truman, nor should there be. The memorial should be to honor the brave soldiers who planned, died, and’ accomplished this MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, not politicians and dictators.
Since WWII we have let the politicians, bureaucrats, and news media versus professional soldiers micro-manage our wars. Had they been managing D-Day, we would have lost the war, and the generals who planned it would have been tried for war crimes. Our present political leader refused to visit the Normandy Memorial in France for fear he would offend the Germans. He refuses to use the word “Muslim Terrorist” who killed 3000+ US citizens on 9/11 and have killed 4000+ American soldiers since for fear it may offend Muslims. Why was the bust of Stalin added? Was it because his absence would offend Communism, or to provide money from a non-profit to a sculptor? We have had the Korean War, Vietnam War, 1st Gulf War with Iraq, 2nd war with Iraq, and are currently engaged in wars with Afghanistan and Islamic terrorism worldwide. It may be too early to tell, but the 2nd war with Iraq is the only one you could argue that we may have won, and I don’t think the politicians or news media can claim much credit for that one.
I will not plan on visiting this otherwise great memorial, or recommending it until the bust of Stalin is removed, as it dishonors the brave soldiers the memorial is supposed to honor.
Sincerely, Ed Preston
Ed Preston has said it all. I have already sent a letter to D-Day Memorial Office and told them: I have visited the D-Day Memorial several times and have also taken friends there. BUT, until the bust of Stalin statute is REMOVED and NEVER put there again, I will NOT go to the D-Day Memorial and I have and still am discouraging everybody I talk with to ‘not waste your time’ going to the D-Day Memorial because the bust of Stalin is there. The people that I talk with have said they will NOT go to the D-Day Memorial because the bust of Stalin is there. So there you have it!!! REMOVE THE BUST OF STALIN AND DESTROY IT!!!! IT DOES NOT BELONG AT THE D-DAY MEMORIAL!!!!!!!
Islamic terriorist IS a proper term.
And her is some other reading along these lines.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/02/cultural_marxism.html
The current “political leader” doesn’t call them “muslim terrorists” for the same reasons we didn’t call Timothy McVeigh and his group “Christian terrorists”, because that’s not what they are. They are all terrorists. Islam, Judaism, nor Christianity espouses terrorism in any form or fashion, so no religion should be associated with it.
The National D-Day Memorial has a board and should be the ones questioned about the placement of Stalin’s bust at the site. If it is there, there would be a need for busts of FDR, Churchill, and other leaders at the memorial, but something tells me there’s more to this story that’s not being told, so you had to get some other prejudices off your chest.
National D Day Memorial Foundation was instituted to honor our heroes and not this communist bastard killer of more inocent victims than Hitler ever did. And yet he gets a pass because ” it is the thing to do” at the top.