The Final Stages Saw the Americans Beating Back a Defeated German Army (George Wilson – Part 10)

Final part of the memoirs of” George Wilson, about his experiences as a soldier during World War II. In his early life, George Wilson was born on April 3, 1921, in Sumner, Illinois. Growing up in the midst of the Great Depression, Wilson faced the challenges of a struggling economy. Despite the hardships, he developed a strong sense of duty and patriotism. Enlisting in the U.S. Army, Wilson underwent rigorous training, both physically and mentally, preparing him for the harsh realities of combat. As depicted in his memoir, his early life experiences served as a foundation for the resilience and courage he would later demonstrate on the battlefields of Europe during World War II. The book provides a gripping account of Wilson’s survival through numerous harrowing experiences, shedding light on the indomitable spirit of a generation that faced the crucible of war.

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As I sat flat on the floor of the Battalion aid station my mind was on Captain Nukem and I was only dimly conscious of the medic sprinkling Sulfur powder on my foot and dressing it I returned to reality when a Jeep took me to the rear Battalion aid station

Although I was still deep in shock a medical technician used some surgical forceps to remove the piece of shrapnel from my big toe telling me that the toe was broken and that I’d be going back for a nice long rest at the next stop down the line regimental aid station

A doctor looked at my foot and decided to leave it alone he ordered a medic to put a tag on me with a brief description of the wound a short time later I was loaded into an ambulance with three other wounded men then the driver headed for the field Hospital 50 Mi farther

Back the trip was very bumpy over torn up roads the medic riding with us had to spend the entire time sitting or kneeling beside a casualty in an attempt to keep plasma flowing into him he was typical of all the I saw they did their best willingly and unhesitatingly we

Infantrymen knew that if we got hit a medic would run out and drag us back in if at all possible they were so dedicated it seemed they simply ignored bullets actually they were just as scared as we were it was almost dark when we reached the field hospital and

Our stretchers were lined up on the floor of a large receiving room that must have been a gym the place was unheated and someone threw a blanket over each of us Medics walked walked up and down the lines of stretchers weeding out the most urgent surgery cases and my

Turn came after about a 2-hour wait as I looked out across the gym at row after row of stretchers the scene reminded me of one in Gone With the Wind it is always the Infantry man who suffers worst in War I was stripped of all my clothes and personal belongings by an

Orderly nothing was ever returned perhaps it was a bit of poetic justice the most valuable object I had was a gold watch with a diamond marking each hour I had taken it from a 50-year-old German who had been sent to the German infantry as a replacement when we first

Attacked the zigfried line in September 1944 he had formerly been stationed As an interpreter in Paris where he had taken it from a shop though offered as much as $300 for the watch I had decided to keep it I wonder if the orderly ever got home with

It I also lost a very good Luger Pistol sir surgery was a small room with a few gas lanterns and the usual table the young surgeon who worked alone there looked extremely tired he gave me a local and quickly began to clean out the wound then he began to cut along each

Side of my toe to get at the ends of the severed tendon and tie them together he told me there was nothing he could do about the bone which was cut almost through I tried to sit up to watch him in action but he firmly pushed me back

And said sorry but you can help me more lying down he finished tying the tendon sewed up the wound and then taped a protective wire cage over the foot early next morning we were moved by train to a nice large Hospital not far from Paris there

My wire cage was replaced by a walking cast we stayed about 2 days and then were put on a train to sherberg where we were loaded on a hospital ship for the crossing to England while on the English Channel headed for Plymouth England my stomach got very upset and I vomited at

First the doctors thought I had the usual seasickness but when it persisted after my arrival at the 101st General Hospital near Bristol the doctors became quite interested three were assigned to work on my problem after experimenting for 3 or 4 days with the usual tests and remedies for stomach ailments with no

Cooperation at all from the patient’s stomach they gave it all up and decided to start from scratch they went into my medical history right back to Childhood particularly about digestive problems of which I had had none then they came up to the recent past and asked about my

Eating habits in the army they probed and found out I’d been almost entirely on K rations since June 1944 that they couldn’t believe so I explained that I’d been on the front continuously for 8 months and that we received normal food from our kitchen trucks only when it was safe to bring

Them close to the front that had not happened very often I said it was a safe bet that that about 90% of my total meals had been K’s and that there were stretches of several weeks at a time when we never saw our kitchens the doctors explained that they had had a

Great many combat veterans come through but never anyone who had been in combat so long I felt they were being polite that they really didn’t believe me so I told them to check my records they finally took my word for it and decided the long Siege on K rations had

Gradually changed my stomach so much that it couldn’t readjust just to regular food then they put me on pap and my digestion cleared up right away though not my disposition I was starving and they wouldn’t help me the other men in the ward got deliciously loaded trays

And all I received was a little dab somewhere in the center of my plate after about a month they relented and put me on a regular diet I never thought hospital food could taste so great while my tow wound was legitimate enough about 20 other men were in the ward and

Everyone was in worse shap shape than I which made me feel somewhat out of place a couple of them had been riding in Jeeps that were blown up by mines and their bodies had been shattered worst of all was a soldier who had 19 fractures

In his arms and legs he was strung up in traction with several pins through each leg his condition was so bad the doctors couldn’t even move him into the operating room for the setting of still more fractures so a team of doctors and nurses worked on him in the ward I

Watched in Fascination as they knocked him out with a shot and then used a bone drill and put more pins in his legs we could hear the bones great as they were being set that night this poor fellow who never complained had a bad dream he screamed and thrashed around in the bed

And yelled at his men as he fought a battle all over again I rang for a nurse who was elsewhere and then hobbled over to his bed and tried to Rouse him out of the nightmare by talking to him and very gingerly shaking him he didn’t respond

So I slapped his face quite gently which brought him around I hated to do that but the nurse later told me he was probably doing himself a lot of damage tossing around the doctors worked on him for several more hours the following day then kept him under heavy sedation for the next few

Days after the war I met our Ward nurse near home much to our mutual surprise she told me the poor fellow was in her Ward for over a year but finally did recover about a week after my cast was removed I was transferred to a rehabilitation hospital near Barnstable

There we went through a program of exercise some pretty darn severe but it did have the salutary effect of getting us back in shape for recreation we played volleyball and pingpong and after a while we were given passes to Birmingham 18 miles away while there I also managed a short orientation course

Under The Exchange program at at Birmingham University and I even wound up living in a very Posh private boys school adjacent to the university there despite the war everything was most formal as part of the course we also visited some Public Schools a government slaughter house and the city’s water

System this last was a major problem because the water for that city of over 2 million came over open viaducts from rivers in the Hills 75 Mi away the Germans had sabotaged the system for a while and the people suffered shortages water had to be trucked

In most interesting of all was our trip to the very old city of Coventry the site of the immortal King Arthur and his legendary Roundtable less than 100 yards from the King Arthur collection was a church dating back to ad500 that had been hit by German bombs about 75% of the church

Was in Ruins but the local people had pledged to rebuild it in mid April I must have been in a most peculiar state of mind because I actually passed up a chance for a brief vacation in Ireland it seemed I was silly enough to want to

Get back to the 22nd infantry before the war ended soon I found myself in a replacement Center reppel Depot we called them near Birmingham because my records showed I’d been a company commander in combat I was given command of a company of 200 black troops and was

Told to get them equipped and delivered to France for a staff I had five white off officers and one black and I should mention that at this time in history there was no such thing in the Army as integration all the officers had been wounded and were returning to

Duty of the 200 enlisted men only three had been wounded in battle the rest were mostly VD casualties it was something of an adventure to keep the men equipped what was issued one day might be gone the next everyday thefts were reported to me some of the men sold traded or gave away

Their personal equipment I soon learned that some of the local English women were available for cash or Goods most of the men had had very little schooling and their ring leaders most of whom had decent educations seemed devoted to keeping them stirred up the black first sergeant was very good however and he

Soon had the ring leaders picked out our job then was to try to keep them so busy they didn’t have time to bother anyone nonetheless I did have to break up one knife fight and I also had to stop dice games which usually led to combat though

Not the kind we were in Europe to fight at last we were ordered to stand final inspection before embarcation and some of these actors went all out to louse up the inspection and delay returning to their units one character even lipped off to the inspecting major when ordered

To turn in his personal luggage to the sergeant for shipment home this black soldier a really huge man deliberately addressed the major as Captain and told him him he’d have to come and get the luggage himself if he wanted it so damn bad without an instant’s hesitation the

Major jerked the luggage from the man’s hand and tossed it to the sergeant the big Soldier just sulked as his cardboard suitcase was taken away later the major confided to me that he thought the soldier wanted to be thrown into the brig and that the best punishment for

Such men was to return them to the front next the doctors lined the men up for short arm inspection and of course that also had its Antics some of them still had VD and when these Souls were pulled off the list for shipment out they laughed and clapped their hands with

Glee and sometimes did a little jig a few days later our group did indeed reach laav France to my immense personal relief the unit was broken up and the men were shipped out to their own units mostly service or truck companies my stint as their Commander had lasted only

10 days and I very much doubted I could have coped much longer keeping the men in the proper equipment was a constant worry lack of cooperation can be immensely more frustrating than some days of actual combat I was immediately assigned to a replacement pool next day we began a series of moves

Back to our outfits if this had been the time of the Bulge we could have been shot back to the front by Express but now we had no great priority and the Army seemed in no hurry to return us to our units our first stop was a French

Military base behind the the magino line and we stayed there for 3 or 4 days in nice brick officers quarters much like the permanent buildings on the main post at Fort Benning Georgia one day we toured the majino entering this massive underground defensive line through huge doors in the

Rear the French Captain guiding us admitted that the Germans had taken that sector of the impregnable line simply by going through a gap and approaching from the rear which was not defended the fortifications of the maano line were four stories of concrete with two stories below ground and with the

Excavated dirt being piled on the sides and on top so that it looked like a long low Ridge there were apertures for small arms fire for machine guns and for Cannon large gun turrets facing the front were retractable and had Periscope sights so the crew could operate entirely behind the cement

Walls what amazed me though was that the largest guns behind all these elab expensive turrets were only the old 75s of World War I other features that impressed me were the Conveyor Systems for feeding ammunition to the guns the comfortable living quarters for the crew and larders with enough supplies to withstand any

Sort of siege for at least 3 months overall it was a tremendous engineering feat of which the natives still seemed quite proud it was an even more outstanding example of military futility the old French generals had still been planning on static trench warfare even if they’d been able to stop

The Germans from breaking through a gap it would have been easy for the Germans to drop paratroops and take the undefended rear and yet the Germans the inventors of the Modern Warfare that obsoleted the magino themselves built a Sig freed wall which we were able to break through in only one day in

Addition to touring the majino we were also allowed to visit a nearby town of some 500 foot folks one thing that should be said about France and probably much of the continent is that they openly accept as matter of fact and part of normal life some institutions that

More straight-laced Nations endure if at all more discreetly thus the local Sy Emporium was flourishing in no small way supported by Army personnel and the base commander recognized it to the extent of sending in Army doctors to examine the girls then all of a sudden some higher arm my commander ordered those Spas

Closed at once and it became the job of the current guard led by me to execute the orders and evict The Madam and about 20 girls our orders did not require us to follow through however so the girls were soon out on the streets enterprising finally after so many long

Bleak years for the natives in pain and suffering for all of us victory in Europe VE day arrived May 8th 1945 the population exploded into the streets and danced and drank the night away amid fireworks and everything else they could cut loose with some of us got a little homesick

All of us celebrated on this happy occasion the balance of our trip to nurg was interminable slow and unpleasant for we no longer raided anything but the infamous 40 and8 box cars 40 men or eight horses and I wouldn’t treat a horse that way occasionally we were sidetracked for Supply trains headed

East into Germany and for Long Train loads of pitiful Frenchmen who had been slave labor for four years and who were headed home to France their faces were thin and their eyes were set in deep dark sockets they were jammed in worse than we with barely enough room to stand

Though dirty and helpless they still were going in the right direction and they waved in Wild excitement as their box cars crawled past I couldn’t help thinking of the awful shock some of them might be facing houses in Ruins wives who had fraternized children fathered by

The enemy no money no jobs no prospects and nothing but the shakiest government nurburg which we went through on trucks was my first view of a major city bombed by the Allies besides being an important rail head it was also a highly emotional Target as the sacran heartland of the

Nazi cult the Wellspring of Hitler Mania the breeding ground of the Third Reich plague British and American bombers had attacked day and night hitting it with everything from incendiaries to Blockbusters fires had raged out of control and we heard that casualties on one night’s raid reached 75,000 blocks and blocks were level

Acres of rubble now and then we would see a building with some outer walls gone the inner floors still suspended in midair with Furniture rugs and bedding standing intact looking like a huge dollhouse the old walled inner city was completely demolished nothing was standing nothing moved it was all Broken Bricks and dust

The Rail Yards were a mess of shattered box cars steam engines and roundhouses heavy rails were bent like wires some being Twisted into giant cork screw spirals 30 or 40 ft in the air wooden ties were splintered or burned and even the heavy steel supports under box cars

Were melted so they saged to the ground at one point we passed the massive deserted Stadium Hitler had built for his Mass rallies and I remembered the newsreal shots of the Sea of rabid uniformed chanting disciples responding to his posturing and ranting our trucks continued out of town

Toward Bamberg present home of the fourth Division and I couldn’t get used to the sight of former German soldiers still in uniform for that’s all they had to wear straggling Homeward they were walking even the few who had bicycles just walked beside them as though afraid

To ride on the highways with all the American trucks they didn’t eye us directly and their appearance was most ragged and dejected nevertheless I had the feeling they were deeply relieved that it was all over the other civilians we happened to see were mostly women and their expressions were uniformly stiff and

Unsmiling in addition to the usual fear of conquering Invaders still an unknown quantity they must have had their worries about whether any of the stragglers would turn out to be Sons or husbands I reached Bamberg headquarters of the fourth division about May 10th and soon I was in a jeep headed for

Rothenberg and the 22nd Infantry Regiment Colonel Ruggles our new regimental Commander greeted me warmly and told me Colonel Buck lanam had been promoted to Brigadier General and transferred we had a pleasant chat about all the changes in the 22nd and in my second Battalion during my absence

Then I asked if he knew what had happened to my promised promotion to Captain he told me that all promotions for the second Battalion had been scrapped I gathered that for some reason Colonel Lanham had gotten mad at the entire second Battalion had discarded the suggested promotions and had even

Replaced Lieutenant Colonel Keenan I was never able to learn why I told Colonel Ruggles that it didn’t seem fair to penalize those who had earned and deserve promotions and I asked him to recommend me for a captaincy based on his personal knowledge of my Rec record

This may seem pretty pushy but I knew I deserved a captaincy and was gradually learning to speak up for myself without hesitation Colonel Ruggles said he would be happy to put my name on the list but that he couldn’t promise anything now that the war in Europe was over as it

Turned out the Army had Frozen all promotions he tried again once he reached the states but that too was denied so I remained a first lieutenant a Jeep now took me to dinkles BU headquar of second Battalion where I reported to our new commanding officer major Clifford swed Henley I had heard

Of the big swed and had seen him a time or two but never had met him his welcome was warm and pleasant and he introduced me to several of the new officers I also shook hands with some of the veterans including Captain George Kerr and Captain mlan major Henley was extremely

Decent to me and I could tell by his somewhat uncomfortable manner that he was most reluctant to have to tell me he had no company Commander positions left in the Battalion that the best he could do was offer me a job as company exec what I replied in effect was from all I

Can see sir my experience alone makes me senior to almost any company commander in this Battalion I want a company here or in another Battalion if you really can’t make enough changes to give me a company then I’ll go back to Colonel Ruggles and ask for a transfer I can’t imagine myself having

Said anything remotely like that a few short months earlier and it’s a wonder he didn’t throw me out instead he just said well give me a couple of days to see what I can do hang around Battalion headquarters and maybe we can work things

Out so I was given a room in the small hotel that served as Battalion headquarters and a few days later major Henley sent for me and asked if I would agree to take command of H company that’s about the way he phrased it I told him a heavy weapons company water

Cooled machine guns and 80mm mortars would be new to me me but I was sure I could handle the job so it was arranged Charles pillard H company’s Commander went to Battalion headquarters as an assistant S3 and I became commander of H company in h company’s area of operations was a German military

Hospital filled with Wounded German soldiers and this had to be guarded I assigned sergeant flipo witz and two squads of men to the job they had no trouble at all keeping things under control also nearby though not my company’s responsibility was a large prisoner of war Stockade filled with

German soldiers as Might Be Imagined German officers and noncoms kept the strictest discipline within the Stockade these Germans were still official prisoners and it must have been odd to them to see former comrades in arms who had Lain down their arms at the end of the fighting walking about freely

On the outside as they straggled Homeward as a matter of fact there was some irony in this for we American conquerors were still indentured to the military while our Vanquish paraded around as instant civilians of course we had another war going on Halfway Around the World in the Pacific and some of us

Worried that MacArthur might be aware of the fine combat record of the fourth infantry division he was we learned later another thing we kept a wary eye on Was An Old Camp for a few hundred displaced persons just released from slave labor these poor people had existed in Long quanset huts where they

Were packed in like animals being forced to sleep on the floor in rows they had been imprisoned in filth and the first steps in their emancipation were hot showers and deling a clean set of clothes and burning of the old rags after a few days they were sent on

Their way home which for most was in the Balkans as for our relations with local civilians there weren’t supposed to be any the Army had set up a strict ban against what it called fraternization which was emphasized with a 9ar PM curfew that seemed the safest rule considering the number of irrepressible

Mischief Makers among our ranks and the newness of the piece one of my men soon proved the value of the rule he finagled a Jeep and driver from the motorpool after the curfew and with the generous help of a Lithuanian Refugee located a friendly place where he could load up on

Local moonshine after a while delightfully drunk the man pushed the driver into the passenger seat and took over the wheel soon he had up enough speed on the gravel road to miss a turn totally wreck the Jeep send the driver to the hospital with a back injury and kill the

Refugee apparently totally relaxed the cause of it all walked away with a few bumps and bruises his luck didn’t end there either for the Battalion Commander let him off with a severe reprimand and even classified the Jeep as our final combat loss to make it Expendable a few weeks later and the

Fellow would have had to pay for the Jeep given army pay in 1945 that might have stretched out a while another disturbance in our routine was the arrival of some Replacements directly from the states the group had been lucky enough to hit the end of the

War but one of their number at once ran into combat with our first sergeant the veteran top Sergeant a virtuoso in the art of chewing out GIS had been getting a little out of practice due to our hum drum duties and he pounced lovingly on one of the new men this unfortunate had

Been a salt waiter Corporal one appointed unofficially and very temporarily for the duration of the journey he had decided unilaterally to keep the rank and SE on real Corporal Stripes he also had some Whoppers on his service record and when this form finally reached the first sergeant there was something of a verbal

Explosion after the sergeant had run out of words he scratched a 6tx 6t Square on the ground presented the new private with a pick and shovel and had him Dig Down 6 ft many many hours later when the excavation was completed the sergeant was quite pleased with it and as a

Reward he let the man fill it up again as for living quarters we were practically in Garrison one big school building housed the whole company our only continuing problem was the electricity for we never knew whether we were plugging into AC or DC 110 volts or

220 several of our people blew up radios before we figured out the system the geography there was reminiscent of Michigan Farmland with its Rolling Hills wide fields and patches of woods another link to home was the type of storage bins in common use which were very similar to what we called fruit

Sellers when I was a boy in Michigan mounds of Earth lined with straw to hold potatoes carrots turnips cabbage Etc the vegetables kept well all winter and could be dug up as needed peacetime Duty in dinkles bu was most Pleasant our most serious overall business was Recreation some of us became pretty good

At pitching horseshoes at first we were handicapped by having to use what was available and this meant the huge old iron shoes of local farm horses after a while we acquired the regulation shoes used in competition and soon were holding tournaments although we had to be mindful of fraternizing we didn’t think

This applied to the local trout some of us picked up some of the best trout fishing ever in the small river that ran right through town the Burgermeister managed to come up with old cane poles lines and a few hooks we then dug up some worms and headed for a bend in the

River about a mile out of town where he had suggested the fishing was exceptionally good Lee Lloyd and our driver went along and after about 3 hours we came back with almost a 100 nice 10 to 15 in tra for the cooks this simple pastoral life couldn’t go on

Forever and in June 1945 we uck for the first leg of our move home soon we bivouacked near fth our entire company stayed intense on the edge of a big hay field and without much else to do we watched interestedly as the German farmer his robust wife and his strong

Armed daughter cut the entire field by hand using cradle sies then they used huge rakes with wooden tines to get the hay and Rose to dry the farmer and me noticed the hay had to be turned a couple of times in the next few days when the hay was finally dry they loaded

It onto a wagon drawn by a big draft horse and a milk cow hooked up side by side the farmer stayed on the wagon and the two women pitched all the hay up to him it was a crude old-fashioned way of farming but it worked I supposed that

Hitler could not spare the metal for farm machinery and that many of the workhorses had become military casualties after a few more Restless weeks with plenty of horseshoe pitching we were happy to board the trucks again for the final Overland leg as we followed the Autobon to Mets and then

Traveled clear across the rest of France to reach the English Channel at laav our ships were not yet in the harbor and this meant a few more days to kill in a tent camp nearby practically all my time went into tedious paperwork for Customs required a declaration to be

Made out for each on Military Edom Aman wanted to bring home and the company Commander had to examine every piece of paper and then sign it later when we reached the states the Customs people didn’t look at a single thing and all that paperwork had been for

Nothing finally on July 3rd we boarded the famous Liberty ship the usat excelsia and sailed for the good old USA for several days the Seas were high and the ship pitched and rolled and vibrated severely when the turn came up and the propeller was out of the water our speed

Was cut to about 5 knots and we didn’t think we’d ever get out of the Atlantic I didn’t feel too well most of the time and once I was knocked flat on the deck by a sudden pitch many of the men were very seasick and spent most of their

Time below deck and away from the mess hall then 10 days out of laav we landed at Hampton Roads Virginia along with M company while the rest of the regiment was Landing in New York we were given 30 days off but that wasn’t too much for

All the things on my schedule from laav I had written Florine my bride to be that she should go ahead with the wedding arrangements I estimated my arrival home at about July 15th as it happened I missed it by 2 hours arriving home in Grand Ledge Michigan at tuck amm

On July 16th no one was at the station to meet me I had wired but they never received the message so I phoned from the station in Lancing and that brought everyone to attention soon they all arrived to drive me the last 12 miles home I had been gone 15 months over half

Of it in combat and there is no describing the delicious feeling of being home again the feeling doesn’t last long and it has to be earned but during its fleeting moments it is absolute Bliss I couldn’t believe it I was home on July 21st we had a nice

Church wedding and a big reception which was what Florine wanted my dad loaned me his 1937 Hudson Terra plane and a friend at a Shell station got me some gas coupons for the short honeymoon trip to Grand Rapids in Half Moon Lake near Stanton we rented a Lakefront Cottage

And our honeymoon was beautiful news of the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan came while I was still on leave and a few days later came the tremendous news of Japan’s complete surrender at that moment I happened to be in Grand Ledge and I could not

Control nor was I ashamed of the tears that suddenly flooded my face I now was a married man and the fourth division would not as rumors had insisted be part of the invasion of Japan I was flooded with relief just as I was beginning to adjust to the incredibly Pleasant

Civilian life my 30 days leave ran out and I had to report back to the fourth division now at Camp Buckner outside Durham North Carolina Florine soon joined me and We Came Upon a small two room apartment in Durham for $4 a month it had a kitchen equipped with a

Kerosene stove a portable tin oven and an ice box I also picked up a 1942 Hudson and shared rides with other officers back and forth the peacetime Army wasn’t too bad at that point we managed to keep ourselves occupied with much routine and a half-hearted training schedule I couldn’t help but notice that

Some of the men marching out to remote training areas seemed to have extra bulges inside their shirts and that some of their rifles looked an awful lot like softball bats finally the Army faced the inevitable and set up a system of priorities for releasing its guests they

Awarded points for time and service with extra points for overseas Duty and five points for each major campaign and every medal I was one of the lucky ones to get an early release rolling up over a 100 points with my three years service 15 months overseas five major campaigns

Three purple hearts two bronze stars and one Silver Star on September 30th 1945 one day after my 24th birthday I became a full-time civilian 3 years and 11 days had passed since my first encounter with the United States Army jobs were scarce and many people were out of work now that war

Production was over I could have returned to my old job on the railroad but I just didn’t want to I was a different person I found I like to deal with people face to face person to person and it seemed the best place for that was in sales I started off with vacume

Sweepers which I sold fairly easily until the company went on strike I went into other lines until I wound up in Insurance there seems to be further irony in my life in the fact that I Who as a young man saw so Much Death and destruction that carried with it no

Compensation whatsoever except perhaps the honor of having fought with courage and distinction should go into a business that attempts to put a price on a loss out of all this damned useless War I hope I’m entitled to a few simple observations the cost in grief and

Devastation if it’s on the scene is so immeasurably expensive that no one really wins no human being disputes this fact of life so why can’t human beings think of this before a war if War there must be then above all it must be kept away from our

Shores if I and all of my fellows learned one thing it would was that keeping War at arms length may not be possible with modern long range weapons and so there must be no war in the first place such prevention seems possible with human beings only if there is

Strength overwhelming enough and obvious enough that no one would dare take the first step toward War the war we fought in Europe was uneven enough when calculated in terms of puny men in the face of incredible Firepower and colossal War equipment unfair enough when seen in terms of the futility of

Strategy in the face of brute strength it was surely the last war in which strategy could still be employed and make a difference in outcome nuclear weapons are bound to render this Tim honored Convention of War null and void one of the most visible religious leaders of the world the pope stood at

The memorial to the dead at Hiroshima and proclaimed that mankind must take a step forward in wisdom and emotional maturity so that this sort of catastrophe will never happen again I hope we are up to it let there be peace