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Mr. Cox
Mr. Coleman
Mr. Cox
Mr. Coleman
do you think about having a commission?" And he said, "Do you think you can handle a
commission?" And I said, "I've thought of it a long time. I felt that way a long time." Kidding
back with him. Hell, I thought I always belonged as a commissioned officer. But he said, "I'm not
kidding you." I said, "You're bound to be kidding me." He said, "No, I'm not kidding you" And I
said well, "If you want the answer to that question, I can do it." And he said, "I think }ou can too.
Let's go see Colonel Seitz." Major Seitz was now a colonel. So we went up and we talked to
Colonel Seitz who is now a three star General in Kansas today. Anyway, we went up and we
talked to him. And I didn't really pay enough attention to really relate exactly how the thing went.
Except that when I left that house, it uas just a question of getting where we were going from there
up to the town we were moved to, off of the RiN iera to our next area. And then I would be made
an officer. I just took it for granted. I remember thanking them and saying they would never
regret it or some such line from the mosic, I guess. Anywa3, then, from there, wNell ue ate our
Thanksgiving Dinner there.
In 1944?
Yeah. From there we got on boxcars, not a train, not a passenger car. We got on those damn
things and went from there to Soissons, France which is across France up north of Paris and up
toward Germany and Belgium. The little town of Soissons. And there we got off and camped in
an old, I believe it was a military barracks, I mean old, brick, rot, one of those things you do make
a movie about. Really old and really classic and brick parade grounds, you know, lopsided,
everything old, old. We got in there and they said all right boys you're on a class D priority which
means no ammunition, no clothes, no nothing because you're not going to have to do anything but
sit here and wait until we go jump across into Germany. O.K. Well, that isn't exactly what
happened. We were there about two days and here they come again with these damn trucks and
say the Germans have broken through in the Ardennes and they're heading this way and some of
them are even south of here. He said they're already beyond us. How'd that happen? You know,
paratroopers. And anyway, they put us in these trucks and up we go. In the meantime, Winter has
really set in and my feet are shot. As well as, see I was going to take care of this hearing. I was
hearing these ringing deals. And this particular ear was real sore inside and all, but it's not
something that we were in a position to pay any attention to down where we were before because I
can still maneuver. I mean, I didn't think anything about it. But apparently about two or three
days after we got up in that terrible fight...
Was that the Battle of the Bulge?
That was the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. They sent me back to the hospital to get my feet
treated. They were so bad you wouldn't want to look at them. And when all that - to make a long
story short - when that happened, I neNer got back to the outfit. They sent me back to (?????).
France. I was there and somehow or other developed pneumonia, or had it and didn't know it. I
remember being kind of delirious when they told me we were going to move to another hospital
and I kept telling them that I'm moving from here to my outfit. I remember having a big issue
with some orderlies about that. As a matter of fact it was one of those things where they were
holding me, holding me, telling me I wasn't going anywhere. I was just delirious. I wasn't
making any sense, I'm sure. But anyway, it got so bad up there that they needed hospital beds. So
they would move the guys in the beds they had to another hospital. And they kept doing that to us
and I ended up in La Mon, France. And I didn't know where my outfit was by that time. By that
time you know they were gone anyway. So the next thing I knew a guy from E Company was in
the hospital with me. And I said, "Where in the hell are they?" He says, "I don't know but when I
left it was snowing like hell." And I said, "Well, me too." And the bullets going here and there
and the enemy on all sides of us and all that. "Yeah", he said, "That's right." He said, "I don't
know where they are now.." We lost a lot of guys, and he named a little town, Malmedy, where
there w as really a massacre. I was under the impression that it was our particular outfit. But he
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