Quote:
Originally Posted by clubleaf206
Some things that were related to me by a man that served over there during the war;
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That winter he was on nighttime picket duty and he heard noises in the dark. He saw a German soldier who had "liberated" some wine and was wandering around drunk, he said that he would stumble over a rock, fall down, get up laughing and wander around some more, occasionally singing. He said had him in his sights, with the safety off and then had a change of heart, he said to me "That man was not a threat to me, he wasn't shooting at me, he didn't even have his rifle with him. Hell, that could've been me instead stumbling around, had I found that wine first." The German finally wandered away and fell asleep, apparently, and the rest of the night was spent trying to keep warm.
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An interesting moment from the chaos of war. A couple of years ago, I had a veteran from the Scheldt Campaign (autumn 1944--to clear the Scheldt Estuary so Antwerp could be used as a supply centre) speak to my class about his experiences. He related a story about being in a small village with a Bren gun while watching 3 obviously very inebriated Wermacht regulars stumbling down the road towards him, bottle in hand and singing. The students thought this was pretty funny. Then, like a kid, he went "Brrrrrrrrraap!" while swinging his hand from left to right. He then very matter of factly stated that he "let them have it". Interestingly, he stated that he had no remorse...it was war, and if the tables had been turned it could just have easily have been him lying in the street.