[WW] The Best Source of Storylines...

[LiveDaD@aol.com]

Hey all,

I work with a hospice and have the privilege to actually take time and chat 
with my patients (Just talk to someone in the medical field and you'll 
understand what I mean =).

Well, as the WW generation dies off, more then a few pass my way, and boy do 
some of them have stories to tell.

Here is a quick view of some of them.

A Hungarian who was captured by the Germans who, once they found out he spoke 
several languages fluently (One of which was Russian), trained him as a spy 
and Saboteur. He told me how he operated for three years behind soviet lines. 
You though James Bond was cool, this guy rocked! After the war he used his 
talents to stir up trouble with the Russians and was one of the instigators 
of the Hungarian revolution.

A Polish man who got five days of training, a rifle and six bullets to stop 
the oncoming Germans. He and three friends were put in the front trench and 
when the Germans began their advance they turned around to find that everyone 
had left them! He was captured and put on a train but, due to his fluency in 
German, he was able to save himself and his friends (While the train was 
going a German soldier told them to jump off at a certain time, they did, and 
they survived). He noted that while under German occupation the Germans built 
roads and otherwise improved his town. When the Russians came they looted his 
house and raped his mother.

Another fought in the pacific and had a Japanese knee mortar drop in the 
dugout he and six of his buddies where laying in... all five were instantly 
killed and a piece of shrapnel hit him in the shoulder and spun down narrowly 
missing his heart (It made a wicked scar).

Another was a mule trainer in India who spent his whole wartime... Training 
mules =)...

Another Marine told me about how, when fighting Japanese in the Pacific, they 
used to count shots before they would charge your hole. Well, when the (I 
think it was the) M1s started filtering down to them they were able to 
chamber three or four more then their previous rifle... So they would squeeze 
off (I think it was) six, the Japanese would squirrel out to take advantage 
of the lull and 'Pow' they would hit them with the rest of the rounds (He 
mentioned it took them awhile to figure it out =).

Another GI who was part of intelligence, trained and stationed in England, 
was on an errand from his CO to find a table in a new occupied town. Well, 
long story short, the Germans retreated hastily and left a bunch of crap 
behind, one of which is a serviceable little table... With a fully 
functioning Enigma Machine!

A sailor who was an engineer of a destroyer in the Atlantic told me he one 
day decided he wanted a change and asked for a transfer to the Pacific. He 
soon got his transfer and a week later his only destroyer was sunk by a Uboat 
and the torpedo hit where he was stationed (All them men he worked with were 
killed but there were survivors). He ended up serving in the Pacfic for the 
rest of the war. (Weird note: I asked him the names and numbers of the ships 
he was on and a week later, while I was watching an episode of Battlefield, 
they showed the destroyer he was on! It was really creepy looking at that 
clip and realizing my patient was probably on that ship during that time! I 
forget what battle it was but I asked him and he said he was there but they 
didn't see any action).

And I'll never forget one of my patients who was a combat engineer who was in 
middle of telling me the story of how he got wounded when he was working on a 
bridge, when and then promptly stood up and dropped his drawers so I could 
see the scar on his ass =).

There are tons of other stories I have heard and each of them have the 
makings of a great adventure... I tell you truth can be far stranger then 
fiction sometimes =)...

Seek out your living history out there... Most of them are ready to talk and 
are appreciative of a young ear who actually cares...

Time for my vacation (Disneyland Here we come =)...

Write you next weekend!..................... K