Epic of the Eighty-Five
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Given no name, just a number. Now she lays in eternal slumber. Designed by men for a special purpose. Never known by most, remembered by us. Manned by races, Yellow, Black and White. All Americans serving with all their might. Regulars and Reserves banded together. Pledged and trained to serve in all kinds of weather. Down the Sabine and across the Gulf she sailed. During her training, she never faltered or failed. Across the Atlantic to North Africa she went. Seeing her first action without a dent. Then on to Sicily and Salerno to invade. Putting soldiers in place to ashore wade. Then on to Gibraltar and on to England. To become a part of the Allied Command. Across the Channel on D-Day to bloody Omaha Beach. The German Atlantic Wall to breach. To meet her death from enemy fire. Gallant in action, now did she expire. Now she lays with her honored dead. Where on her decks, soldiers and sailors bled. Mourn no more for the Eighty-Five For in our memories, she remains very much alive. |