It was the bloodiest battle American Soldiers have ever fought on foreign soil.
Hand Salute.
I knew a man who was there. He was in the quartermaster corps driving a truck through the area and got stuck there. He said he was saved because his mother taught him enough colloquial German that he was able to make the German soldiers calling out think he was a German. He had nightmares about that experience for years afterwards.
<>“We are objects. We belong to them,” he said. “If they don’t like us, they discard us. That became the way of life.”<>
At Disney World in the mid-90s, I had my first and last encounter with a group of Germans.
Arrogant a-holes. All of them.
Thank you for posting this. God bless all who fought against the tyranny that was the Nazis. Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for another. Such love covers a multitude of sins.
Wish he’d told how and when he came to the US....his experience is interesting but missing those details.
My uncle, who would have been 105 this year, drove a tank in an armored division at the Bulge. The rest of his crew were killed but he survived and came home in one piece.
My father was shot in the leg and chin outside St Malo France, patched up and sent with the Big Red One and was cut off in the Ardennes Forest. Frost bite there. I’m lucky to be here. Thanked him for being hard to kill. Best man I’ve known in my life and I miss him.
“We’re paratroopers, we’re supposed to be surrounded.”
My grandfather served in the battle of the bulge and most of his unit was lost. He was wounded and had what at the time was called shell shock (probably would be severe PTSD today). He had amnesia and was not in his own uniform and missing dog tags. For several months my grandmother was told he was likely KIA but turned up in an army hospital in New York.
The army and VA did not know how to treat him so they used heavy sedation and anti psychotic drugs that ultimately lead to his death.
All have some, some gave all.
My great-uncle (my grandma’s brother) died at the Battle of the Bulge, age 19. He was the youngest of 7, and the only son. Til the day she died, I don’t think my grandma ever got over it. Even my mother, who was about 10 when he died, would become tearful remembering that year’s Christmas, how every decoration was removed and nobody was allowed to celebrate anything. I still have the telegram sent to the family informing them of his death.
I couldn't but a beer in any bar, once they found out that I was an American serviceman.
My maternal grandfather fought there. Survived, came home, and shortly died in a car crash in Alabama.