D-Day Address Draft #3

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!

You are about to set sail on a voyage that is very exciting and full of adventure. It is a dangerous adventure, but a good kind of adventure also, kind of like sliding your Johnson through a fun hole at a carnival. It could be a beautiful woman on the other side or it could be a hungry goat! It is my sincerest wish for each and every one of you that Germany turns out to be a beautiful woman. The eyes of the world are upon you. That's something you normally don't want but this is a very special fun hole. An epic fun hole, made of millions of human lives and the greatest technology of the industrialized world.

The hopes and prayers of the liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. I really wish that we could have gotten the liberty-loving people instead of their lousy hopes and prayers to march with us but I guess a lot more people are 4F than I thought. Childhood obesity I guess, search me. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will probably kick the manure out of the Nazis. I meant to say that a lot more eloquently, but gosh darn it I am just hopping mad about this! Those fellas are the pits. The absolute pits. Why, if I could stomp on Hitler's toes I would, but as Supreme Allied Commander it is my solemn duty to instruct all of you to stomp the heck out of Hitler's toes for me.

Your task will not be an easy one. The Germans have all kinds of weird tanks and jet planes that you probably haven't seen even in one of those kooky future books you kids like to read. This is all Flash Gordon stuff, so do not be surprised if a Nazi tries to zap you with a death ray. I don't know what to tell you about that. If you can capture some of their ray guns I'd really appreciate it. I'll send it back to the eggheads in the lab and see if they can cook up some death rays for you boys. In the meantime just try to make do with your regular bullets and bombs because those seem to do the trick pretty well. You also need to keep in mind that these Krauts have been at it for a lot longer than we have. Some of you might have given them what-for in North Africa, but this is different, this is France, and Belgium, and that place with the dikes and that little tiny country between France and Germany. Eventually it's going to be Krautville itself, and it is a wondrous land of straw-haired milk maids with huge racks and strange machines that run like clocks. But remember! The death rays will be everywhere. Inside those clocks, inside the milk maids and their cows, and even inside the flowers that only grow high in the mountains.

But this is the year 1944! Not 1943, when Jerry was on top of the cake like the bride and the groom. It's not 1942, when Germany conquered the Soviets and turned them all into slaves. It's not 1941, when Hitler was as tall as the sun and made out of gold. It's definitely not 1940, when France and all those other places I mentioned and Britain and some of Canada were all crushed beneath the heel of the Nazis. It's sort of like 1939 in that Poland is still beaten, but we brought some of those guys along so they can do some parades in the tanks we gave them so don't feel too sorry for them. Thank God it isn't 1938, when the Japs were visiting Germany with an army of five million of their inhuman buck-toothed ape-soldiers that will run at machineguns and chop you up with swords. It ain't 1937, when FDR was engaged to Hitler and they had picnics together in the park and spent whole afternoons just lost in each other's eyes. FDR figured Hitler out, figured out his tricks, and the honeymoon is over!

The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. It was intense! Bullets flying through the airs like bees and huge explosions the size of a bus or something. Bayonets, axes, pikes and halberds all flashing in the hot sun like fish in a stream of blood. Sometimes some airplanes buzzed around and shot their guns and bombs all over the place and it was crazy. Maybe they had tanks driving over skulls and shooting lava out of the front to encase men and women in hot magma. Some horses over in the corner going crazy and kicking people. Maybe a huge cannon like on a pirate ship only way bigger and on a railroad car shooting balls of iron the size of a church. There could have even been some lions or elephants running around totally out of their mind with fear and rage just stomping and biting everything they see. Just imagine that. Close your eyes and picture that with a huge ball of iron crashing down and a lion biting an airplane and some submarines coming out of a river and throwing hand grenades. War is hell my friends and you are bound for hell.

But our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and place at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The other shoe has dropped! The pickle is on the bun! The shit is on the shingle! The house is on fire! The bet is on black! The grapes are full of wrath! The old man and the sea! The freedom is on the march! The bad moon is on the rise! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Unless too many of you get shot to death on the beach today! Then we might accept something less than full Victory! But it will still be a Victory! Maybe if you all die before you kill any Germans we would be willing to accept a Victory where we just sort of mind our own business back in America and forget about the Germans! That's still a Victory when you think about it! Your family and crippled friends will be off rations! There could be a huge fleet of German super submarines full of their storm troopers hiding near England and when we least expect it they will swarm across all of England and the Irish will declare war on the British and emerge from their bogs with torches and pitch forks and slay all of the Kings and princesses. Then we would accept a Victory where Britain was a part of Germany, like a state, which isn't so bad when you think about it because it would be just like they were Germans except they would have different drivers licenses and maybe different liquor laws.

Good luck! Oh man, you guys are going to need it. They have mines, cannons, machineguns, and all sort of crazy stuff on the beaches waiting for you. I'm talking pits fill of spikes and trenches of tar they're going to shoot flaming arrows into. Only the lucky and the late will survive, so my advice: hang back by the water while the other guys run up and get shot. When the Germans run out of bullets you can run up on them and shoot them or throw some grenades or whatever works best. I'm just saying, as a general principle be cautious and don't just go charging in. I'm a strategist so I look at the broad concepts and paradigms behind a battle. You talk to your officer and ask him, see what he thinks and he will give you some tactics. Those are like stereo instructions for fighting a war.

Alright, close your eyes, and beseech God and the firefighters and first responders at Pearl Harbor whose name we are fighting in on this gray day. May the blessings of engine three out of the Pearl Harbor district four firehouse fall upon this great and noble undertaking.

– Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower