My daddy was in a machine gunner group in the Battle of the Bulge.
About half his group was killed, he never talked about it...
2 Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star...
My great uncle was injured during the Battle of the Bulge.
My great aunt always said he had “scrapnel” in his head!!
“About half his group was killed, he never talked about it...”
My 96 year old uncle also fought at the Bulge. Only 2 guys left in his platoon at one point. He and a Lt. went out to scout around and they were pinned down by Germans. They barely made it back, Germans chasing them the whole way back
He had nightmares every week about it the rest of his life.
He was wounded very badly and spent a year recuperating.
Amazing. I thank you father for his service.
I had a great uncle who flew B-26 Marauders in WW II European theater. I had a picture with his plane with D-Day markings on it that my Grandpa gave me. I was so proud of that. But he never talked about it. I was a kid (around ten) when I asked him about it, and he just walked away from me. My feelers were hurt but my Grandpa told me it was just too painful to talk about. He lost a lot of friends. He didn’t even talk to his own family about what he did. One of his daughters approached me at my Grandma’s 90th birthday party and said she had found his flight logs and a few charts and asked me if I thought she should keep them. (??)
I had a great uncle that lost an eye when he scaled Point du Hoc on D-Day and caught shrapnel in his cheek.
Another great uncle who was a mechanic in the Pacific theater. His job was to go out and retrieve damaged vehicles and tow them back, repair them. He told me one time, just before he died, of his first combat experience, where they went out to retrieve a damaged truck and heard an odd buzzing sound. They realized they were being shot at from the jungle. He laughed about it. He was such a good guy.
I had a neighbor, very nice old man, who one day asked me for a ride down to the library to return some movies. Of course, I obliged. We started chatting about the news of the day, and it turned to the war in Iraq. He said he was not much disposed to go to war - you better have a good reason. Turned out he was a World War II vet. Battle of the Bulge. He was an ammo runner, among other things. I jokingly said, that sounds like it was a pretty dangerous job. He chuckled and replied, “Yeah, a little bit hazardous.”
God bless these men.
God bless all of them.