Poll: Military Service

[Homer]

Originally Posted by Black Vulmea

It was Patton's 3rd Army which very thoughtfully brought the 101st extra ammunition and hot coffee.

No one 'rescued' the 101st.


(My uncle served in 327th GIR at Market-Garden and Bastogne. He'd never forgive me if I let that pass.)

Three uncles on both sides of the family in the ETO:

First was in the 1/401 GIR which became the 3/327 GIR of the 101st ABN. Landed by sea on D-Day and by glider in Market Garden, finished up in Bavaria. He kept a framed picture of Christmas Day dinner in Bastogne up on his wall until he died. He called it the best and worst Christmas of his life. Eternally proud to have been a “glider rider” and to have used his GI bill to be the first in the family to go to college.

Second was an M4 tanker in 2/66 and 3/66 AR of 2 AD. Joined the division prewar at Benning, Africa, Sicily, and ended the war in 45 just short of the Elbe thanks to the Volkssturm. Survived two other vehicle losses and was one of two members of his original prewar platoon still around in 45. Married in to our dry Methodist family. Never drank after he came home, but (to my aunt’s discomfort) knew every local tipple from Sicily to Germany, and could recall them when he came to see my OSUT graduation at Knox.

Third was in 2/119th IN, 30th ID. Landed with them in France, through Mortain all the way into Germany. Enlisted in 43 as a private and was a SSG leading a squad across the Roer by 45.

Another uncle was an underage 40mm ammo handler on an APD off Okinawa and later prepping for the invasion of Kyushu. As soon as they were sure the war had ended his leading PO told him he was underage and headed home. He went home, finished school and college a before finding himself as an infantry platoon leader in Korea, airborne company commander in the Cuban missile crisis, and battalion commander in Vietnam before closing out the US presence in Ethiopia.