My Dad fought in that battle. It didn’t talk too much about it other than he was in it. Lost part of his hearing from the big guns being used.
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.
My dad was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, near Bastogne. His half-track was hit by a bazooka shell and he carried shrapnel in his back the rest of his life.
I have an uncle who is in his 90’s who was in the battle of the bulge. He had been at Omaha beach and ended up in the Huertgen Forest meat grinder where he got trench foot/frost bite and got moved to a hospital for treatment and then to the Ardennes to a quiet sector he was told, yeah right...