Vincent and Maggie Jo Goodspeed on March 25th, 1944. Months later Papa would deploy to Europe to help defeat the Nazis and give Europe back their freedom.

A lot of us have kids back home, or hope to have later on, and those kids are going to know about the 95th and the part it played in cleaning up this mess. They’ll know what the 95th has done for them and be just as proud of the outfit as I am. And that’s tops.

We aren’t joking any more about that nickname, “Victory Division.” We think we’re proving it. The next job? I don’t know what it will be, but I’ll bet a million to one that the 95th does it wholehog. That’s the kind of division we have, that’s the kind of leaders we have, that’s the kind of fighters this outfit has — “Bravest of the brave.”

- US Army 95th Division soldier writing home on his first Christmas in combat

Hope & Prayers of a Nation

Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces General Dwight D. Eisenhower sent a message to the troops on June 6th, 1944. There was a full moon that night with suitable illumination for a land invasion to liberate the people of France from the tyrannical grip of the German Nazis. France indeed all of Europe needed our help and it was time to stop Hitler’s evil, murderous advances all over Europe.

“Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force. You are about to embark upon the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 6, 1944

Today our country commemorates that extraordinary day that a bunch of our bravest men landed on the beaches of France and kicked off the war in Europe unintentionally solidifying their place in history as the Greatest Generation. They beat back the Germans, liberated towns and endured massive casualties to achieve for the people of Europe a victory they could not achieve for themselves without our help.

My grandfather Vincent Goodspeed fought in World War II. He was a soldier in the 95th Infantry Division. The 95th Infantry Division suffered 6,370 combat casualties in 151 days of heavy fighting in Nazi-occupied Europe, more than 72 percent of the unit’s strength. The 95th ID was renowned for fighting back fierce German counterattacks so much so the division earned the nickname “Iron Men of Metz“, a title given to them by General Kittel, the German fortress commander of Metz whose forces were defeated by the 95th ID. The frosting on the Metz cake was the capture of Lt. Gen. Heinrich Kittel, Commander of the 462nd Volksgrenadier Division and of the Metz Fortress.1

At 1435 on the afternoon of 22 November 1 944, Maj. Gen. Walton H. Walker reported to Lt. Gen. Patton that Metz was completely secured. It was during the battle for Metz that war correspondents nicknamed the men of the 95th “The Bravest of the Brave”.

Unfortunately for my Papa, while liberating the towns and fighting the Nazis he was actually captured by the Germans and held as a POW along with some other soldiers. Equally unfortunate for the Germans was their decision to hold him in captivity somewhere near the battlefield. According to the Defense Department document of the incident Papa escaped their detention facility and removed the boots of dead soldiers to give to the officers (officers and enlisted were held separately) then they all broke out of captivity and rejoined their unit. I don’t know if they sneaked out of the camp or shot their captors but I know they got out and we all won. Eventually Papa joined the newly begun United States Air Force and rose to the highest enlisted rank, Chief Master Sergeant–a fact that played a major role in my own decision to join the Air Force and get a commission while in college.

The D-Day invasion is a great day for the US, Allied Forces, France and all of Europe to commemorate the day that the members of our Greatest Generation put on their boots and went to Europe give them back their liberty. Is it worth it? Are we empire building when we step in to defeat tyranny and establish liberty?

Hope for Peace or Fight for Liberty?

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 26, 2003, General Colin Powell defended the U.S. government’s position that the use of military force against Saddam Hussein, unilateral or otherwise, was not only justified but necessary if the complete disarmament of Iraq could not be achieved by other means.In a question-and-answer session afterwards (during which the phrase “empire building” was never mentioned, incidentally), the secretary of state was asked by former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey if he felt the U.S and its allies had given due consideration to the use of “soft power” — promulgating moral and democratic values as a means of achieving progress towards international peace and stability, basically — versus the “hard power” of military force.

Here, in part, is how Colin Powell actually responded to Carey’s question:

There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power — and here I think you’re referring to military power — then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can’t deal with.I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don’t think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world. [Applause.]
We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

Continuing the same line of thought in a different forum, Powell has also said:

Far from being the Great Satan, I would say that we are the Great Protector. We have sent men and women from the armed forces of the United States to other parts of the world throughout the past century to put down oppression. We defeated Fascism. We defeated Communism. We saved Europe in World War I and World War II. We were willing to do it, glad to do it. We went to Korea. We went to Vietnam. All in the interest of preserving the rights of people.And when all those conflicts were over, what did we do? Did we stay and conquer? Did we say, “Okay, we defeated Germany. Now Germany belongs to us? We defeated Japan, so Japan belongs to us”? No. What did we do? We built them up. We gave them democratic systems which they have embraced totally to their soul. And did we ask for any land? No, the only land we ever asked for was enough land to bury our dead. And that is the kind of nation we are.2

Let’s all take a moment to reflect upon their contributions and remember them when we feel the least bit tired and weary in our battle for freedom here and around the world. The Iron Men of Metz wouldn’t quit!