The Battle of the Bulge

[Franek]

http://

I NEED A COUPLE OF GUYS THAT DONT OWE ME ANY MONEY TO GO OUT ON A PATROL

[Owen]

Willy n Joe isn't it?
What did you guys back then think of those cartoons?

[Franek]

You have to remember. This along with v mail is all that we had. We looked forward to it.
Bill Mauldin got in trouble with George Patton over them. He said that it degraded the American soldier. He had Bill stopped. But the outrage from the GI'S cut that short. He was ordered by Eisenhower to allow Mauldin to continue. We loved it. He told it the way that it was.
Bill Mauldin died a couple of years ago.

[Franek]

Jeff;
I got your message. I think that I know what you are looking for. But I feel a little guilty about talking about my own experiences when there are so many more out there other than mine. The other things that I added all pertained to the Battle of the Bulge. This was the humor that we had, and the weapons that we faced.
Let me talk about battle fatigue. I myself had a touch of it. After making my escape from the German tank and infantry. I was fine. When I was transported by ambulance to Malmedy,and realizing how close I came to dying. I started to shake uncontrolaby. I could not stop. It lasted about ten minutes then it stopped. It never happened to me again.
Upon arrival at the Field hospital. I noticed an Oriental kid with his groin blown away. Jeeez, there was nothing there. There were guys in there with no wounds, but they were like Zombies. They just stared. That I believe was battle fatigue or shell schock, or just plain fear. The only other time that I saw this,was when the Germans retreated back to Germany. The Schnee Eiffel was heavily wooded. On one occasion they made a stand. We jumped for cover and fired back. But there was one guy that cowered and would not fire back He just hid.
That was my only experience with battle fatigue.

[Slipdigit]

If you don't talk about it, who is?

What did you think about the guys who had battle fatigue?

[Franek]

Ok Jeff;
All men are not created equal. So what makes one man a hero, when another cowers? I for one do not know. There incidents of men running to the rear and not stopping. They were sent back by MP's in the rear. Now does this make a person a coward. Who knows? I for one ran. So does this make me a coward?. No, I dont think soi. I ran but stayed alive to fight another day.Did I expereience fear? Hell yes! many times. Like who wants to die. I read an article in our division paper that there was a BAR man in our outfit. That did not fire at attacking Germans. When asked why. He replied that he thought that he might miss????? He was taken prisoner. I think that he told his story because he had a guilt complex.(JUST GUESSING) .
You asked what my opininion of them was?I have no opinion. We all did what we had to. Who knows how one will react under fire.

[Franek]

http://
Jeff, I know what you are looking for. But when I started this thread, I was attemting to tell the whole story.It was not just about me. I just wish that there were others to tell their story I would hate to think that I am the only one that is still alive.
Ok, along with other humor. There was the above image that we all used during 1944-45. I dont know how it all started. quick to catch on. You could go into a bath room in Paris while doing your thing you looked up and saw Kilroy on the wall. Many times while in attack we would see a house with the above picture on the door.So where and how did it start??? Who knows. You can talk to any WW2 vet(WHO SERVED IN EUROPE) if you can still find one. Ask him ,who was Kilroy. Trust me he will know.

[Franek]

Legends
There are many urban legends attached to the Kilroy graffiti. One states that Adolf Hitler believed that Kilroy was some kind of American super spy because the graffiti kept turning up in secure Nazi installations, presumably having been actually brought on captured Allied military equipment. Another states that Stalin was the first to enter an outhouse especially built for the leaders at the Potsdam conference. Upon exiting, Stalin asked an aide: "Who is this Kilroy?" Another legend states that a German officer, having seen frequent "Kilroys" posted in different cities, told all of his men that if they happened to come across a "Kilroy" he wanted to question him personally. Another one states the entire gag was started by a soldier in the Army who was sick of the Air Force[dubious – discuss] bragging that they were always the first on the scene; the little man and phrase then began appearing in ludicrous places to indicate that someone had, in fact, arrived prior to the Air Force.
The graffito is supposedly located on various significant or difficult-to-reach places such as on the torch of the Statue of Liberty, on the Marco Polo Bridge in China, in huts in Polynesia, on a high girder on the George Washington Bridge in New York, at the peak of Mt. Everest, on the underside of the Arc de Triomphe, scribbled in the dust on the moon, in WWII pillboxes scattered around Germany, around the sewers of Paris, and, in tribute to its origin, engraved in the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.[3]