I am feeling reflective tonight while reading a book called "A Soldier's Heart". My uncle served in WWII as a Lieutenant during the Battle of the Bulge. I never new much about his service as I grew up but do remember the Luger he brought back that I learned how to disassemble at the age of 10. I wish I had that Luger, it would never be sold. I do have a Heer ceremonial dagger that he took of a German. I foolishly tried to sharpen it as a teenager lowering it's value, but it has even greater value to me still and it will also never be sold. His own children really have no respect for these things.
He received a silver star for leading his men across a river under fire. If I remember correctly, he started out with something like 20 men and ended up on the other side of the river with 7. My mother always told me that he never wanted to talk about the war so, much later in life, I asked him about that. He said no, of course he would talk about it, but he always talked about the things that were difficult, but not difficult as far as warfare goes. Things like getting a jeep to travel in the winter with only his clipboard as a windshield. He was in reconnaissance and was ordered to determine the number of German tanks in a particular town. He determined it was a suicide mission and took his men to the top of a hill and guessed how many tanks there were. Command found out about it and he almost got court martialled except that he guessed pretty close and it was dropped. There was also the story of the German that they fired over 200 rounds at that eventually surrendered. All he had was a violin and a loaf of bread.
One of the things I heard allot as a child was that he always miss-spelled sweetheart writing home to the woman that would become his lifelong wife. He always spelled it sweatheart. He was never good enough for his upper crust mother-in-law but his wife loved him. She is gone now also.
He would, once in awhile, mention those damned Krauts and his wife would remind him that he was of German descent himself.
Born in 1920, while growing up, his family always worried that he would end up being a bum, but after the war, he made something of himself like so many of our WWII veterans did. He became a lawyer and was a prominent lawyer in my hometown from 1954-1993. Two Hundred people came to his funeral when he passed away in his late 70's after having heart trouble and valve's replace during the previous 15 years. He was a good man that many people liked. Though we really did not have that much interaction, he was a pseudo father to me.
I miss him.
He received a silver star for leading his men across a river under fire. If I remember correctly, he started out with something like 20 men and ended up on the other side of the river with 7. My mother always told me that he never wanted to talk about the war so, much later in life, I asked him about that. He said no, of course he would talk about it, but he always talked about the things that were difficult, but not difficult as far as warfare goes. Things like getting a jeep to travel in the winter with only his clipboard as a windshield. He was in reconnaissance and was ordered to determine the number of German tanks in a particular town. He determined it was a suicide mission and took his men to the top of a hill and guessed how many tanks there were. Command found out about it and he almost got court martialled except that he guessed pretty close and it was dropped. There was also the story of the German that they fired over 200 rounds at that eventually surrendered. All he had was a violin and a loaf of bread.
One of the things I heard allot as a child was that he always miss-spelled sweetheart writing home to the woman that would become his lifelong wife. He always spelled it sweatheart. He was never good enough for his upper crust mother-in-law but his wife loved him. She is gone now also.
He would, once in awhile, mention those damned Krauts and his wife would remind him that he was of German descent himself.
Born in 1920, while growing up, his family always worried that he would end up being a bum, but after the war, he made something of himself like so many of our WWII veterans did. He became a lawyer and was a prominent lawyer in my hometown from 1954-1993. Two Hundred people came to his funeral when he passed away in his late 70's after having heart trouble and valve's replace during the previous 15 years. He was a good man that many people liked. Though we really did not have that much interaction, he was a pseudo father to me.
I miss him.
