“Into the Ardennes, with only a trail of breadcrumbs leading to victory.”

“Into the Ardennes, with only a trail of breadcrumbs leading to victory.”

If we leave here together — people will talk.” A line is a line. But even old lines work magic with me if I like guy delivering it. 

I miss Paul Reid. The last few years, my early morning workouts at the Fitness Center would end chatting with Paul, sipping coffee and watching the headlights whizzing by on 441. I loved when he talked of Madison long ago. How he and the young crowd would dance on the overpass to Athens and roller skate down Dixie Highway to Rutledge. If I joked for him to come join me on a run he would laugh, “I hiked through the fields of Bastogne – I never care to run again.”

And I would laugh at this oft said phrase, though I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant.

To a child born in 1963, World War II remained nothing more than grainy black and white newsreel footage or George C. Scott standing against an American flag. My most vivid impression of Pearl Harbor came from watching the Brady Bunch visiting the USS Arizona Memorial where a solemn Mike Brady joined Greg, Peter and Bobby in peering down at the battleship resting on the bottom of the harbor.

War history never interested me. I thought of scenes from movies where abrupt, angry-seeming men unfurled large maps onto wooden tables. Maps drawn with lines representing advancing troops that resembled approaching cold fronts. Yet at some level, I think the real source of my disinterest was thinking of those who woke up to the sound of enemy troops knocking on neighbor’s doors.  Wondering when fists would begin to beat against their own.

Last Veteran’s Day, I interviewed Paul for a post on my blog. Talking with him that day, I began to understand the Battle of the Bulge was not just a clever Madison Avenue weight loss slogan. That a German offensive took place in the Ardennes which winter had transformed into a mystical forest where every evergreen bough dripped snow. Most probably the very enchanted woods Hansel and Gretel had left a trail of breadcrumbs before stumbling onto the evil old woman’s gingerbread cottage. Germany was on the ropes. Only problem was that no one told Hitler. Well, if they did – they surely wouldn’t have lived to let anyone know.

 Just between you and me, but last Friday night at the football game, every time the game went into overtime…. I thought,

RATS. I can’t take this cold.

Young men died of exposure in the French countryside that winter. Paul’s best friend, a fellow from Oregon, wandered away from the group and froze to death. Their dark uniforms stood out as charcoal eyes in a snowman’s face. They ripped white sheets, curtains and doors from abandoned farm houses to camouflage clothing and shelter foxholes. They stuffed straw deep in their boots as protection from the cold.

Walking for miles in snow and ice wearing threadbare clothing and boots. A gun. A desperate  enemy searching for them ready to do whatever desperate men do in battle. I’ve never known misery like Paul and all those who fought in the snow-covered heart of 1944 Europe. I’ve never known fear like that either.

Mr. Reid, things are pretty tame around here without you to escort me from the Fitness Center with each morning.

Pity.