I was assigned to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, in the 1970s. There were many WWII German vets in my organization. One told me he was captured at the second battle of El Alamein and sent to a POW camp in the Dallas area. He worked in the Post Exchange and said it was a “good time”. Had he been evacuated to Germany he would have likely been fighting Russians to the end.
Great story.
I worked about 15 years in Silicon Valley with several of the children of those Russians. Quite a community of former Soviets has grown up in San Jose; Georgians, Russians, Ukrainians... the Russian language is almost as common as Chinese in the South Bay; they even have their own newspaper. They were first generation, so there’s no love lost between them and the old empire; though they love the land, and the people. I always enjoyed getting “the other side” of events from the Cold War. Most of them LOVE Reagan — more than the GOP ever did.