[Euro-American Scum]

We plan to re-trace his route across France (St. Lo, Falaise, Argentan, Orleans, Troyes, Chalons de-Champagne, to Luxenbourg and Luxenbourg City to Bastogne [Battle of the Bulge] and Ardennes area, Bitburg, Germany and back to Paris). We are very much looking forward to this experience. Oh my, the stories he tells.

Sounds like the path of Patton's Third Army. And you're fortunate he opened up to you. My father never said a word to anyone about anything, except to grumble that the only good German was a dead German. He never got over hating them, right to the end.

We expect to be overwhelmed with emotion the entire trip.

As do I.

[BluSky]

He was not with Patton's 3rd Army but, they crossed paths several times according to him.

He has only recently opened up to us and is truly a changed man for doing so. We have heard many times, as in your situation with your father, many WW II vets kept it bottled up and refused to talk about their experiences.

He expressed interest in 'closing the loop', as he said, and wished to return to France and re-trace many of the places he had been and fought.

He knew of other vets that are now departed, that expressed interest in going over to Europe (ETO) and Normandy but never did. They have all expressed regret for not going. My father in-law did not want that to happen to him.

We feel blessed that we will be able to make this trip happen.

He does tell the story of Patton's explicit request to encircle a very large contingent of German soldiers at Falaise that would have shortened the war by 6 - 9 months.

Montgomery could not get his units in place in time and this now known as the Falaise gap. Patton wanted to close this gap, capture/destroy the German army where estimates run as high as 800,000 Germans. Instead, the Germans were able to retreat through the gap like a bottleneck and regroup for later battles. Could have saved thousands of American soldiers lives.

He is recounting many of these scenes to us and frequently becomes overwhelmed with emotion, which is a good thing.

Like I said, we very much look forward to this experience and it's not only the experience at stake here it's a person's life and soul that is healing.