The dogface who changed his name

I met a man with a name that looked French, but it was pronounced completely differently. "What kind of name is that?" I asked.

"It's originally French," the man said. "It used to be pronounced [French pronunciation]. But my father was in D-Day and he was so disgusted with the French attitude that when he came home, he changed it to [the English way it is pronounced now]."

"What did the French do?" I asked. I was really surprised, because on the whole, even French people who don't like the U.S. acknowledge the heroism and importance of the D-Day invasion.

"They were just really, really unwelcoming," the man said. I wonder what more there was to this story.

Comments

[Berta Brack]

Hi Sedulia, My dad was in wave 2 on D-Day and didn't really like the French either, though he said it was because they always had their cigs hanging on their lips! He also had wonderful stories of being out in the country, hiding in a barn, and being served wine and then champagne by the French farmer. I just read the letter he wrote to my aunts about being in Paris over the New Year in 1944 and drinking himself sober on good cognac. My father was not a drinking man which was maybe why these unusual (for him) incidents stood out in his memories. I still have the beautiful compact with the Tour Eiffel and bracelet stamped "toi et moi" he brought for my mother from wartime Paris.

[Sedulia]

My uncle, though, was in D-Day +7 and ended up marrying a French girl he met on the Paris metro. They lived happily ever after.

I think that a lot of GIs had complaints about the French, and that concerned the Allies. I still have a booklet my uncle brought home called 112 Gripes About the French, which answered each one with a logical reason the French were that way. The main reason for most of them seemed to be that the French had just been through two hard wars fought on their soil, and just weren't as privileged in their living conditions as most Americans were.

http://www.e-rcps.com/gripes/