Dale Says

Ole Dad was a career officer in the United States Army from 1939 to 1947, and he retired with the rank of major. His decorations included four battle stars, the Purple Heart, and the Bronze Star with “V” for valor. He experienced World War II first hand, including the front lines in the Battle of the Bulge. When asked about it, he says it’s not possible to describe the horrors of war — the only way to know is to have been there.

Despite the muck and mud of the foxholes and the constant noise from artillery and bombs, morale of the field troops was generally good. He remembers, however, that just when things would slow down a bit, “some of your friends would be killed.” A few of the men would get to a point where they didn’t care whether they lived or died.

One rainy day he stopped to talk with such a soldier tramping along in the mud, weary from many days on the front line. During their talk the soldier told him “they (the enemy) will get you. It may not be today, but sooner or later it will come.”

His came on April 18, 1945, less than a month before the end of the war. He was with the 87th U.S. Army Division, pushing the Germans back into their home country. He was in a jeep with four other soldiers, heading to the next village, with the assignment of finding temporary quarters for the oncoming troops. Ordinarily, they didn’t go into a town ahead of the main body of troops, but in this case a tank crew had preceded them and declared the area clear.

As they approached the village a group of holdout German SS soldiers fired on their jeep from a cluster of trees. One of the soldiers in the jeep was shot in the head and killed. Ole Dad was hit in the side, and a bullet pierced his small intestine. The driver somehow got the jeep turned around and raced back to a staging area where a field doctor treated his wounds, then lay on the floor beside him all night, checking him and keeping the pain down with morphine. The next day he was evacuated to a field hospital where six fees of his small intesine was removed. He was alive, but severely wounded. He spent months recovering, first in a London hospital, and later at home in the U.S. The wounds would force him to leave the Army and cause health problems the rest of his life.

Years later, he and his wife visited the military cemetary in Luxembourg, where many of those who died in the Battle of the Bulge are buried. He left her for a few minutes to get something from the information booth. When he returned, she had been crying. He asked her why. “But for the grace of God, she told him, “I could be here today visiting your grave.”