On 30-Nov-2004, "riverman" wrote:

because the Brits and others (especially the Brits) had
been toiling all along for years waiting for us to get off our hands

The cold war propaganda has buried one of the true tales of heroism in
WWII - the role the Soviets had in fighting the Nazis. From the end
of the Battle of Britain to the invasion of Normandy, the Soviets bore
the brunt of the ground war. Ill-equipped and led by incompetent and
morally bankrupt Stalinists, they nonetheless held the Nazis off and
eventually battled them all the way back to Berlin.

While I am critical of the delays in the US involvment and, more so,
the incessant bragging and exaggeration by current Americans about
their involvement, once they engaged, the US troops played a critical
and heroic role in the war. Over one million US troops gave their
lives in the two theatres of war and for that people in many nations
are grateful.

Mike