My dad too. 104th Infantry Timberwolves. Two silver stars among other medals. Didn’t talk much about it except at reunions and much later. He spoke of a friend getting shot in the head next to him, a Nazi hitting him in the back with a rifle butt and a cease fire for Christmas with Americans singing Silent Night in English and the enemy singing in German. Very surreal. 4years in Europe. We will never see their like again.
One cousin was a truck driver, and he was captured along with his friend when their truck convoy was attacked and captured by SS Panzers attacking cross country to the road they were on behind the frontlines. They were marched into Germany over a period of months, and many of them did not survive the months long outdoors exposure in that bitterly cold winter weather on their way to the POW camp inside Germany. They often faced the agonizing choice of whether to withhold a morsel of poor food from a dying man in order to give another Prisoner a better hope for survival.
Another cousin was a company commander of an infantry unit on the frontline. He lost command and control of his infantry company within the first few minutes of the attack as the Panzers overran them in their positions. He and the other survivors of this initial tank assault started to escape and evade in the hopes of reaching some new American defense lines in the rear. They had to run as fast as possible behind the German tanks to keep from being captured by the German line of infantry following up behind the wave of the German Panzer and Panzergrenadier assault wave. Some of them made it back to the new American defense lines and were attached to the units holding on there.
My Dad was 47 when I was born and most of what I know, I learned from my older siblings. What I do remember him saying was that he was in the infantry, not sure the number, and they were called the “bastard outfit” because they were added on to so many other groups. I also remember how much he hated Patton because his troops were always given top priority when it came to supplies.
My Dad has been gone ten years now but he was a patriot and loved this country. You are right. We will never see their kind again.