What would happen if you walked straight into an enemy soldier?
My father was a kind and friendly man who had very little to say about his experiences as a World War II infantryman.
He enlisted in 1940, and was most proud of his marksmanship badge, which he showed me often as a child.
In 1944, after three years as a jeep driver with the coast artillery in California, he volunteered for overseas duty.
He was apparently very appreciated by his company commander in the 90th Infantry Division, as he was not a half-trained 18 year-old draftee, but a 25 year-old “regular” soldier who’d spent his childhood hunting and shooting game to help feed his family in Northern Minnesota.
From January to April of 1945, he was regularly sent on patrols to scout out German villages for snipers as his unit advanced across the country.
He won two Bronze stars in that time, but pretty much all he would say about it was: “When you are over there, you do what you are told to do.
He met his first German soldier in person on one of those patrols in January. He was walking around a building with his M-1 rifle and turned a corner. The German was walking the other way carrying a “Schmeisser,” an MP40 machine pistol.
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