MY FATHER'S LETTERS: AN UPDATE

Many of you have e mailed after reading these letters, scroll on down, and I thank you for your interest. I don't have any more letters but I do have a few comments, especially as I'm watching Ken Burns's The War and learning my history

Bill was an army medic and called 'Doc' by his buddies

He was at the Battle of the Bulge which I'm learning was the bloodiest confrontation of the war, with 19,000 allies killed over six weeks, Dec. 1944-Jan. 1945.

There was a three hour truce on Christmas Day.
Bill was part of a squad that spent that time taking bodies out of the field. Many were frozen solid. He said later that a lot of the German soldiers were children, 12, 13 years old, crying
for their mothers.

By early 1945 Bill was in an army hospital in Luxemourg with a head injury.
He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. I have these medals.
I'm going to type in the ccommendations later.
He had steel plates pounded into his head.
When I knew him he was prone to outbursts and some violence.
My Irish grandfather-his father in law-would say,
"Ah, the poor fella. He has a plate in his head. He's not right."

He died in 1981.


My mother told me years go that when FDR died she and her girlfriends left work and went to church! Most people in Boston did that.