JUNE 6

 There's something very compelling about May and June, 1944. England was an armed fortress. The streets of London were populated by young men in uniform from all over the world. American Airborne soldiers were so primed that men of the 82 and 101st Airborne could not drink in the same bar without a fight breaking out. 

General Dwight Eisenhower, a mid-level general at the Pentagon before the war, was plucked from obscurity by George Marshall, Chief of Staff of t US Army. Ike was selected to be the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in part because he got along with the British, and President Roosevelt didn't want Marhsall leaving Washington. 

Marshall in Washington; Eisenhower in Europe; General Douglas McArthur in the Pacific; Admirals Halsey and King and Kincaid in the Pacific, and slowly, very slowly the US was awakening as a force for freedom. 

As May ended, the weather in Europe deteriorated.  There were only a few days every month when the moon and tide would be in alignment sufficient to allow the invasion of France to proceed.  On June 4, the day before the invasion was scheduled, as nearly three million men were pulled taught like a bow, the weather got worse, and Ike called for a 24-hour delay.  That decision was momentous. Eisenhower literally had the weight of the world on his shoulders. On June 5 Ike was told there would be a break in the weather on June 6 to allow the invasion to proceed under the minimally accepted conditions.  Saying that a further delay was too biter to contemplate, Ike gave the go-ahead. 

18 and 19 year old boys, members of the 82 and 101 Airborne divisions, their bodies hard from a year of training, many of them with shaved heads and mohawks, trudged on to planes with a hundred pounds of equipment. They were told they needed to give three days of fighting and then they would be relieved. It ended up being close to a month. 

Ike and the Airborne on D-Day -1 

Some of those men looked outside the planes they were on and saw a sight never before seen in history and never to be repeated. Hundreds of ships with hundreds of thousands of men steaming towards five beaches in Normandy, France. 

On Omaha Beach, later called "Bloody Omaha" because the first, second, and third waves of troops were pinned down, mostly by one well positioned German 75mm gun with machine gun support, thousands of men- men who had spent three hours in small landing crafts and then were dumped into the surf seasick and scared, were slaughtered. Those that made it ashore were pinned down. 

Omaha Beach June 6, 1944 

In stepped a man -perhaps the oldest man on Omah Beach that morning. Not as famous as Ike or Patton or Bradley, Brigadier General Norman "Dutch" Cota, 51, leading the 29th Infantry division, was not surprised by what he saw. He knew invasions rarely went as planned and he instructed his staff on what to expect. Cota made it to the seawall and saw men being slaughtered. But he knew great generals lead from the front, so he stood up, bullets flying around him- he later admitted he was scared to death- and he began yelling at the men- urging them to go over the wall and fight inland. Cota came upon a squadron of Rangers and bellowed "I know you Rangers won't let me down. If Rangers lead the way then start fucking leading..." A Ranger captain, angered by Cota, jumped up, told Cota he would lead his men, and off they went. 

Check out our D-Day post on General Cota four years ago, here. 

Slowly, very slowly, men up and down Omaha Beach began to move inland. Yards at a time, the full history of their bravery will never be truly known. But one by one, American boys, from farms and cities the year before, began to fight as citizen soldiers against the best professional army in the world. 

And they won. 

D-Day fascinates us. The decisions facing Eisenhower; the individual bravery of the Airborne, scattered across Normandy, they did what Americans do best- they improvised, and then they fought and accomplished their mission.  And then there were the boys on the ships, many of whom died in the surf and at the water's edge. 

These American boys invaded France, seeking only to free Europe and then go home. The ones who made it home, like Captain Dick Winters of the 506 PIR of the 101st Airborne, (made famous from the book and show Band of Brothers) raised families and lived successful lives. 

This the 79th Anniversary of D-Day. If there is nothing else we can do, then hopefully we can do this and pause on June 6 and remember their sacrifice. And hopefully on the 80th and 90th and 100th anniversary of D-day the world will pause just a moment and remember a time when people joined together to fight for a just cause. 

D-DAY, TWO NEW COUNTY COURT JUDGES, & BAR PRES UNDER INVESTIGATION .....

THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived." — General George S. Patton, Jr.

75 YEARS AGO TODAY, D-DAY, June 6, 1944. It was the largest amphibious invasion in the history of warfare when more than 150,000 brave young soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy, France in a bold strategy to push the Nazis out of Western Europe and turn the tide of the war for good. A total of 4,414 Allied soldiers gave the ultimate sacrifice that one day.

Today we honor them.

YOUR TWO NEWEST COUNTY COURT JUDGES ARE .......

STEPHANIE SILVER, age 42. Ms. Silver has been a member of The Florida Bar for 18 years. She is currently the County Court Division Chief at the Miami Dade State Attorney’s Office. She has worked her entire legal career as an ASA. She replaces Judge Michelle Barakat who was recently elevated to the Circuit Court bench.

ZACHARY JAMES, age 39. Mr. James has been a member of The Florida Bar for 14 years. He is currently a partner at Meland, Russin, and Budwick, PA where he concentrates his practice as a business litigator. He has been at that firm for the past eight years. He formerly served as an AUSA in the Southern District of California and before that as a state prosecutor and a trial attorney for the Department of Homeland Security. He replaces Judge Tanya Brinkley who is also now on the Circuit Court bench. James is also a marathon runner and triathlon competitor.

Governor DeSantis made three other judicial appointments today throughout the State. Tesha Ballou (former prosecutor) to the Circuit Court 18^th Judicial Circuit; Anthony Salem (former prosecutor) to the Duval County Court; and Charles Young (former prosecutor) to the Escambia County Court. DeSantis goes five for five in appointing former prosecuting attorneys to the bench!!!

NORTH OF THE BROWEIRD BORDER .......

FLORIDA BAR PRESIDENT UNDER INVESTIGATION

Michelle Suskauer was sworn in as President of The Florida Bar in June of 2018. Her term ends this month when she turns over the gavel at the Bar’s annual convention in Boca Raton. It looks like Suskauer is going to need the extra time as she now has to defend herself against a Bar complaint filed by a Federal Court Judge.

Judge James Cohn filed the complaint after Suskauer, a criminal defense attorney in West Palm Beach, allegedly permitted a disbarred attorney to represent one of her clients.

The Facts (from the Palm Beach Post).
 
+ U.S. District Judge James Cohn told Suskauer this week that he would contact the Bar after one of her clients told him that disbarred lawyer John Garcia met with him, sat at the defense table when he took a plea deal and handled all the details of his wire fraud case. "Certainly his role was more than that of a paralegal," Cohn said after looking at dozens of emails Garcia exchanged with accused fraudster Anthony D’Amico. "And he had direct client contact, which is prohibited by the Florida Bar. And it is a serious allegation." "Quite honestly," Cohn continued, "the Florida Bar needs to take a look at this, and I plan to refer it to the Florida Bar."
 

+ D’Amico, the client, pled guilty to five counts of wire fraud in February.


+ Garcia, was disbarred for five years in 2007 after he pleaded guilty to federal charges, admitting he hid a client’s drug money and lied to federal agents about it. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. In 2014, he was permanently disbarred after he was accused of practicing law without a license.

+ D’Amico explained that he hired Suskauer and paid her a significant amount of money. He said that Suskauer urged him to also hire Garcia because he was a "federal court specialist". So he did and he paid Garcia $10,000.

+ At the February change of plea, Garcia sat at the defense table. Suskauer was not in court; she instead sent an associate.

+ Suskauer says: "Garcia brings a unique perspective to clients. He not only knows the law, but can advise people about what it’s like to live behind prison walls." "We used him as an expert so that our clients, if they’re sentenced as such, will be able to be better acclimated to the procedure." "Aside from offering prison counseling, he worked only as a paralegal, she said."

+ Judge Cohn said, Garcia — with Suskauer’s help — may have stepped over some important lines. He asked Suskauer about various Bar rules that attorneys must follow when dealing with disbarred lawyers. Suskauer said she wasn’t familiar with the rules but was convinced that neither she nor Garcia violated them. "Well, perhaps you should acquaint yourself with Florida Bar Rule of Professional Conduct 3-6.1," Cohn said. "I think you may come away with a different opinion."

The Rule:

(a) Authorization and Application. Except as limited in this rule, persons or entities providing legal services may employ suspended lawyers and former lawyers who have been disbarred or whose disciplinary resignations or disciplinary revocations have been granted by the Florida Supreme Court [for purposes of this rule such lawyers and former lawyers are referred to as "individual(s) subject to this rule"] to perform those services that may ethically be performed by nonlawyers employed by authorized business entities.

An individual subject to this rule is considered employed by an entity providing legal services if the individual is a salaried or hourly employee, volunteer worker, or an independent contractor providing services to the entity.

(d) Prohibited Conduct.

(1) Direct Client Contact. Individuals subject to this rule must not have direct contact with any client. Direct client contact does not include the participation of the individual as an observer in any meeting, hearing, or interaction between a supervising lawyer and a client.

Our own Brian Tannebaum has been retained to represent Ms. Suskauer in the Bar proceedings.

CAPTAIN OUT .......
Captain4Justice@gmail.com

D-DAY

Seventy years ago today was the day of days. 

When people are asked about meeting a person from history or being at a historical moment they will say things like they want to meet Jesus, or be at his resurrection,  or at Kennedy's inaugural address or at the launch of Apollo 11. 

For us it has always been Normandy, France, June 6, 1944. 

To be a member of the 101st or 82nd Airborne, or the British 6th Airborne division. and see Ike walking the line of young men, their faces black, about to get into airplanes and jump into the night sky over occupied France. 

To come ashore at bloody Omaha Beach or scale the cliffs at Point Du Hoc with the 1st Rangers Battalion. 









To see the greatest armada ever assembled, and watch 100,000 men on the greatest day in the history of the modern world. The invasion of occupied France marked the beginning of the end of the Third Reich. 

But success was far from assured. If the invasion had failed, and it almost did in a hundred different ways, Hitler might have been able to sue for peace on the Western Front, allowing him to concentrate his forces in the east and battle Russia into a standoff somewhere in eastern Europe. The US would have turned its attention to the Pacific and who knows what appetite England and America would have had for another cross channel invasion in 1945 after several years of war? The world might look like a startlingly different place if brave men hadn't fought and died for freedom in places like Ste Mere Eglise, and what is now called the Pegasus Bridge over the Caen canal outside of Benouville, France. 

In his book "The Pegasus Bridge", author Stephen Ambrose argues that fate of the entire invasion hung on the British 6th Airborne's ability to hold the two bridges over the Caen Canal and Orne River. Major John Howard commanded D company of the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Ox and Bucks) Brigade. 

Pegasus Bridge and D Company. An elderly Major Howard in the upper right corner. 

D company had the distinction of being the first allied forces to land in Normandy, a few minutes after Midnight on June 6, 1944. They came by glider, and their mission was to capture and hold the two bridges until relieved by additional airborne forces at D-day + 3 hours. If the Germans re-took both bridges, then they could have set up a defensive perimeter with Panzers that would have made it impossible for the 6th Airborne to re-take the bridges.  Colonel Hans Von Luck, commander of the 125th Panzer Grenadier Regiment of the 21st Panzer division later contended that if he had re-taken those bridges, he could have thrown his regiment of tanks into a late D-Day afternoon counterattack that would have made it to Juno and Sword Beaches. 

A Panzer regiment behind the lines on the beaches would have rolled up the entire invasion, destroying all the equipment being unloaded. 

At  about D-day +1:30, or 1:30 in the morning of June 6, 1944, a squad of six Panzers slowly approached the bridge over the river Caen that D company had taken an hour before in a daring raid. D company was no match for German tanks. Sgt. M. C. Thornton had a small, hand-held Piat rifle which shot, when it worked -which was not often, a small anti-tank missile. 
Major Howard placed Sgt. Thornton at a t-junction just before the bridge. The first of six mighty Panzers cautiously approached the bridge. Sgt. Thornton sat quietly, his hands shaking, his heart beating out of his chest, as he watched the tank approach. He would have one shot. He and his entire company had trained for this night-this moment- with a singular purpose for the last two years. If he missed or the gun mis-fired, the Panzer's guns would surely take him out and then the tanks would roll unobstructed across the bridge.  The Piat had a range of 50 yards, but really wasn't effective outside of 20. 
Thornton waited. 

Ambrose speculates, although Thornton couldn't have known it at the time, that the fate of the entire invasion hung in the balance. Failure to destroy the tank would have led to the Germans retaking the bridges. This mission had been given top priority over all other D-day missions. Allied command knew the value of those two bridges. Thornton fired, the tank went up in flames, the other Panzer's retreated, fearing they were facing a superior force. The bridges remained in British hands and Von Luck's Panzers never had the opportunity to drive to the beach and stop the invasion. 

When Ambrose interviewed Sgt. Thornton many years later, Thornton told him not to make him look like a hero, to which Ambrose replied: "I don't make heroes, Sgt., I only write about them." 

There are a thousand such stories on June 6, 1944. The day of days. The most important day in the history of western civilization. 

We would have given anything to be there. We were born a few decades too late. 

Bust and Plaque of Major John Howard in France commemorating his being awarded the Croix de guerre-the War Cross which France awarded tho those who fought for the liberation of France. 

r