The Battle of the Bulge…into the woods.

The Battle of the Bulge…into the woods.

That looks really cold.

I don’t like to be cold.

After talking the other morning with friend Paul Reid, who happened to be in that snow in the French countryside, I felt pretty much the wimp. And very grateful to all those in the Army infantry that held their ground against the Germans.

Every morning as I race into the Madison Fitness Center late for Emily Buck’s cardio-interval class, I scan the gym for Paul. He is usually on the stationary bike. I wave. He waves back. (Well, to me and any female that might wave his way.)

Now during many of our morning conversations, the subject of running comes up. If I’m off to do some athletic adventure, I always ask Paul if he would like to come along. His standard response. “I walked miles and miles through the ice and snow in the Ardennes — I have no desire to ever run again.”

Until our conversation the other day, I don’t think I truly understood.

As a child, WWII seemed a long ago event. Something of black and white photos and film clips. It conjured up images of George C. Scott standing in front of the flag in movie stills. (As a girl I thought he seemed more terrifying than the idea of the war.) Now I realize all that happened less than 20 years before I was born. That would be as talking to a teenager today about something that happened in 1991 — or close to it — like the falling of the Berlin Wall. To them it might seem a world away, to you recent history.

Those young service men lived that history.

Paul left UGA and went through Fort Benning, Camp Swift and Fort Dix. His deployment overseas was interrupted by Roosevelt ordering them to Philadelphia to break the transit strike. While they were there, D’Day happened. (I’m glad my friend missed the honor of participating.)

Their group headed over on a double-loaded ship. Soldiers spent 12 hours above deck, then 12 hours below. This allowed the ship to carry twice as many boys. He used numbers like 5000 above deck and 5000 below. Ten thousand troops heading to the coast of France.

They arrived at Normandy and jumped over the side of the boat into a net but didn’t have to fight their way a shore. There was plenty of that waiting in the French countryside.

Paul was a machine gunner with equipment that “should have been in a museum.” He threw out all the names and places. Normandy, Northern France. The Ardennes and the Battle of the Bulge. The Rhineland Campaign.

Now I’m am embarrassed to say – I certainly heard of those places, but didn’t know much about them. I never heard of the Ardennes. Could it have been a mountain range? Silly me.

It is a forest. And the more I heard about it, I couldn’t help but picture some wicked, enchanted forest straight out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. All covered, dripping with snow. Paul spoke of how they were joined with the British by this point. Sometimes they would go weeks without seeing the enemy, then there would be periods of day-to-day combat.

The troops were ill-equipped to fight in the ice and snow. My husband and son helped fill in a little bit of the history — the Allied forces thought the war would be over that summer — but that is when Germany pushed one last time into the forest. Winter arrived.

The Battle of the Bulge.  Thinking as a child again, I am more familiar with references to this term used by Madison Avenue  to fight weight gain.

Can you can spot Paul in photo?

I feel stupid.

Paul talks being so cold and having nothing to wear. He saw a German soldier lying on the ground and noticed straw stuck in this boots. From then on, he kept straw in his boot to help stay warm.

Dark uniforms couldn’t camouflage against a backdrop of white. They took anything they could find in old abandoned farmhouses – white sheets, white drapery — tearing them into shreds to use as cover for their uniforms. Taking the doors from the houses, they would cover foxholes with the door and dirt. Surrounded by earth…”We were as safe as in your mother’s arms.”

His best friend, a young man from Portland, Oregon — got separated from the group. By the time they found him, he had frozen to death.

An incaluable magnitude of death resulted from Hitler captivating a nation. More destruction than my generation and those who have come after ever have known – and hopefully never will have to experience.

I asked Paul what he felt about the state of the country today. “I have my doubts whether we could fight a war like we did. Today, we are so divided.”

After the war ended, Paul was ordered to stay on as an MP to help rebuild France.

But the war stayed with him long after returning home. Walking in downtown Atlanta with Graham Ponder a streetcar jumped on the rail. Paul threw himself and Graham on the ground. “You just react after being in those types of situations for so long. The men over there now in the Middle East. They won’t be the same for a while when they return.”

It might be clique (one tenets of Writing 101 is never to use clique) but freedom truly isn’t free. That and thank you this Veteran’s Day.

I pray you all are somewhere warm and dry.