Flags of our Fathers

RU OX Alum · #1 10-23-2006, 12:49 PM

my dad's uncle (my greatuncle?) was in the battle of buldge and I guess the rest of Europe too. We know that he killed machine gunners one day. His answer to how many: all of them. He lost count, he killed every emeny he found though. He told me that once, and I don't think I'll ever bring it up again. I didn't bring it up the first time, but I defetly won't ever ask anyone about their experience again unless I sense they want to talk (I heard this story in a group, and I think those types of conversations should be one on one, if they take place at all.)

DeltAlum · #2 10-23-2006, 01:08 PM

Some veterans want to talk about their experience -- some just want to forget and move on -- sometimes that's for their own good, I think.

My late uncle (Dad's brother) didn't talk much about his experiences, but after a few beers on day told me the story of how he won the Bronze Star.

He was a corporal in the Infantry in France during WWII. They had converted an anti-aircraft gun into basically a big anti-personal machine gun. One night, a couple of men who were manning the piece were killed and they asked for volunteers to replace them.

My uncle and another guy volunteered and were sitting on the gun in the middle of the night when they heard German speaking voices in the hedge rows and saw some German soldiers coming out of a tree line. He turned to the other volunteer and asked if he knew how to fire the weapon. The other guy said no, he thought my uncle did.

They couldn't figure out how to fire.

The Germans looked around and then went back into the trees and never came back again. My uncle figures that if they had fired the gun, they would have been killed.

An interesting way to win a Bronze Star.

RU OX Alum · #3 10-23-2006, 03:32 PM

the most i've been able to piece together is that he or him and his buddies got seperated from their unit or their unit go away from the platoon or something, anyway, he wound behind the enemy, and saw a nest. He knew they didn't see him so he snuk up behind them and noticed another and another...adults in my family who have heard more have told me there were at least around 10 -15 nests with 2-3 people each. That is at least 20people, so no wonder he doesn't talk about it. I'm glad that I'll probably never have to do anything like that. Killing one person would seriously mess me up more than I am, if I had take out 30, I'm pretty sure I'd be gone in the head forever.

xo_kathy · #4 10-23-2006, 04:02 PM

My late grandfather wasn't in the war. He was an engineer at Ford so those men didn't get drafted so they could help produce tanks and such for the war (or so I've heard). However, he played a very big part in the war...He was one of the engineers on the Manhattan Project.

I never learned about it until years after he had died when it somehow came up at a family gathering. Apparently he was extremely ashamed of it. The government basically came to the car companies and asked for their brightest engineers, and he was a chosen. He had shown my brother some of the old files he had in his basement at one point. Interestingly, the day of his funeral my brother went to look for them when we got back from the wake - they were gone. We don't know if grandpa had gotten rid of them at some point, or if "someone" else had...I'm such a conspiracy theorist!!!