(11-12-2021, 03:51 PM)americus 2.0 Wrote: I remember reading about the Battle of the Bulge in Band of Brothers as well as seeing it in the HBO series. It was from the perspective of the men in the 101st ABN. That was insane. How those guys survived the weather without winter clothing or enough food on top of the Germans trying to kill them is beyond anything I can comprehend.

And if I'd been a medic in a combat zone there is no way I would've worn the red cross because it's a big red bullseye. That's one of the first things they told us in AIT/combat medic school.

Alternatively, the movie about the medic in WW2 who never fired a shot.....can't remember the name of the movie....it was a great movie. Dude had a big set of balls on top of his deep conviction.

ETA: the movie was Hacksaw Ridge. He was in the Battle of Okinawa. The first man in history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a single shot.

Dad told us all kinds of stories about his experiences. The bitter cold during "the bulge" as he always called it, was some of his worst memories. It was the deep snow which contributed to him being wounded. The BAR rifleman in their squad was short and was having difficulty navigating the snow which was up to his crotch. Dad offered to carry his BAR for a while to help him out when they came under attack. He used the BAR to return fire when he discovered the rifleman had loaded it with a high ratio of tracer rounds. Dad said it was like a laser pointed to his position. A tank round struck a tree behind him and a piece of shrapnel nearly severed his right foot. He felt lucky because he had turned around to grab more ammunition so his head was where his feet were just a few seconds before. He said the pain was blinding "like someone smashed my foot with a sledgehammer into a barrel of hot oil". 

Being a medic, he had morphine syrettes just like you see in Saving Private Ryan. According to him, the effect was incredible. Once they got him away from the fire he was put on a stretcher slung on the side of a jeep. He remembered being in a morphine haze and watching his foot bounce around nearly unattached to his leg. At one point he said he could see the sole of his boot.  

Later, he was put on a train and said that was the worst. In those days they believed the best treatment for frostbite was to keep the victim cold. He was put on a railroad car with frostbite victims with none of them given blankets. Finally, he got the attention of another medic and told him he was wounded and not suffering from frostbite and was then moved to another car. He said he felt awful for the frostbitten soldiers who were left to suffer even more. 

We were regaled with other stories of horror, like the time they were pinned down in a cemetery with mortar and rifle fire. A soldier about 15 feet in front of him had suffered a severe facial wound. Dad said the soldier was sitting cross-legged with his hands up to his face while blood streamed between his fingers. As dad was making his way towards him a mortar round landed in the wounded soldiers lap and blew his mangled body back on top of him. 

Imagine living with those kinds of experiences. We always imagine our parents as the mature adults as we have always known them. Dad was 18 at the time. A vastly unformed person barely out of puberty and I still try to reconcile those experiences told to me by a man who was really only a boy then. War really is hell.

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