I love to speak with my patients about their lives and am always attentive to military veterans of the WW II era. I adore these men (and women.)
I had the privilege of meeting several men this week who served in the war against the Nazis. One gentleman was a paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne Division who dropped into Nazi occupied France in June 1944. He and his buddies dropped near Ste Mere-Eglise after exiting their plane which was traveling at a speed that made the jump hazardous. Many of the men carried weapons and supplies on a package tethered to their leg and the jump from the plane at the high speeds stripped the package from their legs leaving them with little more that perhaps a knife to defend themselves from the German troops. Amazing.
A second gentleman, whom I have seen on a number of occasions, asked me to day if I knew of a place called Buchenwald. I did. He told me that he and his company were among the first to liberate Jews from this concentration camp in the spring of 1945. He told me of the place, the smells and the inmates who rejoiced as they arrived. He spoke of his disbelief that men could so methodically kill and dispose of men, women and children. He couldn’t believe that those who lived around the camp couldn’t have known what was happening. We discussed the fact that the whole endeavor required many to cooperate: the architects of the camps, the factories that supplied the crematoriums, those that built the camps, those that sold goods or services to the camps, those who prospered on the slave workers. And we spoke of some of the righteous who tried to save and protect the Jews.
These are modest men who saved the world from the tyranny of the Nazis. I thanked both for saving the world and disposing of those who may have subjugated the world if not for their efforts.
