Eighty-one Years Ago Today

June 4th, 1944, was the date of the allied forces’ invasion of France. That daring invasion was seen as the only way to stop the advance of the Third Reich. It was an amazing gamble that resulted in a victory that came with a very heavy price tag. Approximately 2,501 American soldiers were killed, with total U.S. casualties (including wounded and missing) estimated at around 10,000. The overall Allied deaths on that day were about 4,414.

One story readers may not be aware of relating to D-Day is the relationship between Snoopy and D-Day. Charles M. Schultz was drafted during World War II. He trained with one of the units that eventually stormed the beaches of Normandy. Because of an illness in his family, he was sent home before he completed his training, and when he returned, trained with a different unit. The first unit he trained with had heavy casualties when the hit the beach at Normandy. That is the reason Peanuts salutes D-Day every year.

Here is one of the Peanuts cartoons posted on D-Day:

In 2019, The Washington Post reported:

Snoopy, who first appeared in the “Peanuts” comic strip in 1950, has been everywhere at this point: summer camp, college, the desert to visit his hapless brother Spike. He has been to the airfields of World War I in his unceasing fight with the Red Baron, and even to the moon with the crew of Apollo 10.

He also went to Normandy, France, in a national call for remembrance and unity. And there, he became part of D-Day’s pop-culture legacy, one that has shaped Americans’ understanding of the invasion, and indeed, World War II, for decades.

…On June 6, 1993, Schulz drew a comic strip that had little visual relationship to anything that had previously appeared in “Peanuts.” In three grim panels, the cartoonist depicted the eerie silence at the outset of the D-Day invasion. One panel looked atop the beachhead at the Nazi bunkers, where hidden soldiers were ready to fire down on the Allied troops below. The next panel surveyed a Higgins boat carrying a crew of faceless soldiers to a murky landing site. And the final panel revealed Snoopy dressed as a G.I. crawling up onto the beach at low tide. The lone words on the page read: “June 6, 1944, To Remember.”

…In the following years, Schulz’s tributes became more formalized, simply showing Snoopy wading ashore at the rugged beach over the invocation “To Remember.” Despite the simplicity, it was a meaningful statement to some readers. Robert A. Nottke, a World War II veteran, wrote to the Chicago Tribune to complain that he could not find a single reference to D-Day on June 6, 1996, “with one exception.” It was “Snoopy, our beloved beagle, bravely dog-paddling toward Normandy Beach.” Nottke, and undoubtedly other readers, “felt affronted by [the] oversight.” For those who had served and their loved ones, who felt like the sacrifices of that day and month had been forgotten over time, Schulz’s strip was salve on the wound.

Reading Too Much Into Something Can Spoil It For Everyone

Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about a recent controversy about “A Charles Brown Thanksgiving.” Some people who do not know the history of the Peanuts cartoon were upset about a scene in the program where Franklin, a character who is black, is sitting on one side of the table by himself in a lawn chair while the other characters sit around the table on regular chairs. The television special was declared racist on Twitter because of that scene. That declaration of racism does not hold water when the entire history of the cartoon and television specials is viewed.

The article puts the scene in context:

Of course, all of them have no idea what on earth they are talking about. Fortunately, black journalist Jeremy Helligar cleared up some of the controversy on Friday when he noted that the character Franklin had prime seating in other episodes of the “Peanuts.”

“A relevant aside: During the farewell dinner about one hour and five minutes into 1972’s ‘Snoopy Come Home,’ Franklin was seated on the same side of the table as Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Frieda — in a regular chair,” Helligar said on Medium.

The historical significance of the character Franklin cannot be understated; his creation was reportedly demanded by Charles Schulz following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. when a teacher named Harriet Glickman sent him a letter.

“When asked by the head of the cartoon’s publisher, United Feature Syndicate, if he was sure he wanted to add a black character, Glickman says Schulz replied, ‘Either you run it the way I drew it, or I quit,'” reports The Hill.

The Schulz Museum also celebrated Franklin’s 50th anniversary in July. He has never been treated like a token black character added for cheap lip-service to diversity and has always been a valued member of the “Peanuts” gang.

Watching “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” has been a tradition for family viewing during the Thanksgiving season. Hopefully common sense will rule in this situation, and the tradition will continue.

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night…

I love the Peanuts cartoon. If you read the cartoon, you know that Snoopy is perpetually writing a novel. Many of his novels begin with “It was a dark and stormy night…” That is what the latest episode of the ObamaCare saga reminds me of.

National Review is reporting today that over the weekend, without telling anyone, in the dark of night, the Obama Administration has moved the deadline to sign up for ObamaCare.

The article cites a Washington Post story as its source:

Sources told the Post that the 24-hour extension has been built into the online system and is intended as a precaution in the event that the the problem-plagued website sees a surge of traffic from individuals looking to sign up at the last minute, and buckles under the weight.

The extension, said the sources, cannot be overridden by insurance companies if they object to it. It is the latest of several last-minute, ad hoc rule changes issued by the administration, including last week’s announcement that individuals whose insurance plans were canceled may receive an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate

Please note that none of these changes are being sent through Congress and they are simply decided on by the Obama Administration. What happened to the legal process of passing and amending a law? Where is the Constitution in this? Why isn’t Congress complaining about being left out of a large part of the implementation of this law?

Have we entered a period in our history when laws are changed in the dead of night without anyone other than the Administration having any input?

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Snoopy and D-Day

June 6, 1944, was D-Day. It was the day the allied forces stormed the beaches of France to bring freedom to Europe. Every year since 1993, Charles M. Schultz observed the anniversary of D-Day in his comic strip PEANUTS. Why? Below is a picture from one of the comic strips.

 

A few years ago, when I visited the Charles M. Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, California, I found out the answer. Charles Schultz was in the army during World War II and was one of the soldiers training for the D-Day landing. Because of an illness at home, he was sent home before his unit shipped overseas. He was later attached to another unit. The unit he was originally with landed on the beaches of France and took heavy losses. That is why Snoopy is with General Eisenhower every year on June 6.

My father was one of the men who landed on the beaches of France on that day. I can’t imagine the things that he saw or had to do. I will always be grateful for the courage of all of our military and their willingness to do the things that keep us free.

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