Yesterday, I was shown a picture on an Iphone taken late last summer.
The old woman was severely hunched over her walker as she made the difficult journey up a very steep hill. She was not to be deterred from her mission. She spoke only six English words, but that was all she needed to say.
She was 6 years old in April 1945.
When going through his father's belongings, he found eight canisters filled with undeveloped film. He, like most of us, had never asked his father much about his military experience before it was too late. In going through the belongings, he found all of his military paperwork detailing his unit.
After hours and hours of research he found those aging soldiers who had served in the same unit as his father. He could follow the trail the unit had made. While America was planning the invasion of Normandy, there were thousands of soldiers also advancing from the south. His father's unit was among them.
He traced out the path those soldiers took and discovered that every year there was now a dwindling group that would tour the bloody path of war those soldiers trekked, through France and into Germany.
Sixty years later, those battles were resurrected from the eight canisters of film being developed between someone's recent trip to Disney World.
The pictures of the young weary soldiers were also joined by pictures of the atrocities of mankind.
In April 1945, his father's unit helped liberate Dachau. The Americans found 32,000 prisoners alive, 1,600 housed in each of the 20 bunkers designed to hold 250. The Germans had fled to avoid the advancing American troops.
Imagine finding images of the concentration camp along with hundreds, maybe thousands of bodies discarded along the ditches.
Bringing with him the pictures that now had been released from the canisters, he joined the small group that followed the path of the soldiers. Sadly there was now only three of them that remained healthy enough to make the trip.
The young Dachau tour guide was busy explaining to the group the standard memorized words when he was handed a picture of one of the buildings from 1945. He stopped and stared at the picture for a long time in amazement. Suddenly the young man could see the concentration camp as it appeared when the Americans arrived. He took the soldier's son to the building which was still standing, placed him in the precise location where his father had stood and the son took the exact picture his father had taken 65 years ago.
As the small group toured the rest of the camp, the aging bent woman finally made her way to them. She found one of the aging soldiers that arrived there on April 29, 1945.
She lowered herself from the walker and kneeled in front of the old man. She slowly took his hand, kissed it and uttered the only English words she understood.
She said in her extremely broken English, "Thank you for liberating my village."
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11 comments:
Wow, that will choke you up. Well maybe not if your name is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he thinks it was all made up.
I wanted to ask him if there was one dry eye at that time, but I didn't. The trip was obviously emotional, especially because he could not share it with his own dad and be able to ask him questions about what it was really like.
He also said he met an 84 year soldier who served at the Battle of the Bulge.
The soldier could still remember December 15, 1944, the day it started and he remembered January 25, 1945. The day the battle began and the day it ended.
In the years since this soldier did not recall even one day between those two dates, as if someone came along and completely erased that part of his memory.
The group convinced him to go to the VA and talk to a doctor about Post Tramatic Stress Disorder.
These men deserve the best care we can give them and more importantly, they deserve our undying gratitude. Thankfully that little old crippled woman continues to remember and expresss her thanks to those brave men responsible.
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[url=http://iphoneusers.com]redsn0w[/url]
I suppose I should moderate these comments, but I find them so entertaining and after all Anon has flattered me about how much my "message board" has helped the idiot.
Hi Rita. Great post.
My dad's passed now, but I once asked him about the Bulge, which he had been a part of. My dad was not a "tough guy", but he said he didn't remember it being all that bad.
I didn't press him on it. He'd come ashore at Normandy. Maybe it's all relative
For the guys in the 101st at Bastogne, it was pretty bad, Ed. Dealing with horrible weather in relatively light clothing, they slept hugging one another to stay warm.
The guys in our tanks who faced German armor after they ran out of fuel would probably also have harrowing stories.
And your Dad may simply have not wanted to sound like he was trying to make himself out to be a hero.
But he was.
Thanks Ed. I wished we had asked our uncles about their experiences in Korea and WWII. Dad was in Korea when he was 16 (he lied about his age), but thankfully never saw any action.
We had an uncle who passed away a few years ago and was in Sicily during WWII. He not only had a purple heart, but two badges that said something like "to the last man". I cannot find what those meant, but you know it could not have been good.
I have said it several times, we should make sure this history doesn't die with our soldiers.
Thanks, Rita.
I just discovered your blog, and have enjoyed going 'back in time' to read some of your archived posts. This story is so touching to me, particularly after reading the comments.
My dad was in the 10th Armored Division, and was in Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge. He never talked much about the war until later in his life (he passed in 2001). One story he did tell was of how he earned his Purple Heart. He was in the Ardennes Forest when the shelling started. His buddies called to him from their foxhole, and he ran toward them, but tripped and fell. (As he always said, "I tried to crawl inside my helmet.") When next he looked up, the foxhole he was headed for had been obliterated. He wasn't seriously hurt - a piece of shrapnel hit his hand. But he was injured, hence the Purple Heart, which I proudly have today. (Side note - imagine my emotion when I saw this very seen played out on screen in an episode of "Band of Brothers"...)
I had the honor and privilege of taking him to a reunion of the 10th Armored in the fall of 2000, just a few months before he died. That reunion seemed to re-awaken something in him, and made me realize just how much being a participant in that war defined him.
I never really 'got it' before that weekend. I learned in school about the war - that Hitler was a pretty bad guy, killed the Jews, etc. - but it wasn't until I saw those men together and heard some of the stories that I realized just how much they sacrificed to SAVE THE WORLD. And they still loved each other and cared for each other in 2000, just as they did in 1945. Sadly, most of them are gone now.
I don't think we can thank these men and women enough for their sacrifices on our behalf. Thank you for this story, and bless your continued writings. Hope you don't mind if I 'tag along'.
Thank you so much for sharing your story Babs. I don't know if you read the one about my husband.
It's here.
http://ihavearighttospeaktoo.blogspot.com/2009/06/letters.html
Sometimes it's more difficult for him now than it was 35 years ago. Maybe he has more time to think about it now. In either case, these wars changed "those boys" forever, we just didn't realize it.
Thankfully you got to find out about your father's service and the brave young men that served with him.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Thank you, Rita, for re-posting the link to your husband's story; no, I had not read it before.
I was a bit too young to realize what was really happening in Viet Nam, but I did have the obligatory POW bracelet (they were SO popular when I was in high school!). Unfortunately, I still have it. My soldier was never found and his remains were never returned. I've been told that it is offensive to return it to the family; that implies a loss of hope, and there is ALWAYS hope. And, obviously, I feel a whole lot different about that now than I did then.
I really have no words to say to your husband except these two: Thank You. Please tell him that people still are grateful, and still appreciate his service. He is truly an American hero.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thankfully a lot more people are expressing their appreciate to our guys from Vietnam. Not sure any of the other soldiers were treated as badly when they got home as those guys did, but at least America learned a valuable lesson.
I'll send your kind words along.
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