“...Did he ever give you a body count? Mine never did...”
No. Only funny stories, and anecdotes about the Army.
The only thing he ever said to me about the war - other than watching movies with him and him correcting inaccuracies that he saw, was regarding the SS.
I was about 13, and we were watching “The World At War: series, which was on the regular NBC station. They were talking about Hitler’s SS and the Waffen (armed) SS units.
I asked him about them; he shot me a very serious look, and said “We NEVER took “those guys” prisoner, unless we were ordered to. Never.”
Everything else I found out years later by talking with the gentlemen who saved his life, his buddies in the Airborne Association, my uncles, and by doing my own research.
Mom said he didn’t talk much to her about it either, but she did say when he first came home - and this was in 1948 - he’d had some bad nights, and drank a lot for a while.
““We NEVER took “those guys” prisoner, unless we were ordered to. Never.””
Good for him!!!
Those guys, particularly in Europe (death camps) saw some beyond f***ed up sh**. Did you find out if your Dad come across any death camps?
Makes me think of the scene from the movie “The Big Red One” where Lee Marvin’s squad comes across a death camp and Mark Hamill finds a German hiding in an oven, just loses it and empties several clips from his M1 into the f****r. Marvin even hands him a clip when re runs out at one point.
I would have done the same. No prisoners.