D-day!

I always assumed D-day was derived from 'due day' or 'destruction day' or some such reasonable thing. I just found out today that the actual history of the word is far cooler (and maybe even stupider) than that. Here goes:

D-day
1918, "date set for the beginning of a military operation," with D as an abbreviation of day, cf. H-hour, also from the same military order of Sept. 7, 1918:

"The First Army will attack at H-Hour on D-Day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel salient."
[Field Order No. 8, First Army, A.E.F.]

"They designate the day and hour of the operation when the day and hour have not yet been determined, or where secrecy is essential" [U.S. Army Center of Military History Web site]. Now almost exclusively of June 6, 1944.


for more, visit:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=d

yeah

The death toll in the state stood at 972 - substantially smaller than the 10,000 victims some feared.

You see it all over, at least nowadays. 400 Expected toll, 500 die in XYZ ... The media has hit the jackpot. Talking numbers. Simple, and always attracts ears/eyes. Sad that life has lost its meaning, it is now simply numbers.

As i see it, why on earth should it matter if one person dies or a million do? what is lost is life. we should feel bad about the life lost, not the numbers.

Are we too numb to feel the loss of life?
There are 140,000 daily on an average!! Do we care? We say, well, most are 'natural'. somewhere in those words we use, we say, we have to be practical, we can't feel bad for everyone. i think about it, and i end up laughing. what's the stupid difference!! a life's lost!! u wanna feel bad about something, that should be it.

it's special, real special - life really is. sad to see it trivialised to numbers. even sadder to see all of us accept it without a thought.