A Short Memoir of WWII

"I went away as a kid into the service and came back an old man. I had experienced life in a different way. I saw death firsthand and lived off the land. I knew what it was like to be hungry and mostly to fear the unknown." - Albert Fraind, World War II veteran. 

This is in reference to Fraind and other veterans' memoirs of the war.

When I was 21 years old, a soldier came knocking at our door. The next thing I knew, I was part the United States Army. I was quite mad at the time, as I was at the minimum age required by law to register with my local draft board. Everyone around me was also generally opposed to the war, so I saw no benefit in joining.

When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, I was training in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Everyone around me started developing an abhorrence toward the Japs, so I did too. After my training, I was assigned to the 15th Engineer Combat Battalion, and we were sent to Africa to work as part of the North African campaign. Our main job was to find landmines, and I remember disarming hundreds of pillboxes with my outfit. I bet there's still thousands more lying around, though. My buddy Al was always the last one out when we were disarming them, but he always managed to survive without a scratch.

After the North African campaign, I faced a near-death experience. It wasn't due to enemy forces, however - it was due to my low morale. We were swimming in the Mediterranean while on rest and recuperation, and I was being stupid that day and convinced my squadron-mates to swim as far from land as possible. I was feeling so done because of our meager rations and poor living conditions, and I knew it was inevitable we would die. So why not now? I tried to pull Al and another colleague down into the waters with me, but luckily, we were saved by a kind fisherman who brought us to shore.

The next time we would be landing on shore, however, would be to prepare for the invasion of Europe. I vividly remember the Utah Beach shore being scattered with dead bodies. I looked at the surrounding trees, decorated with dead paratroopers hanging here and there. The Germans had already gotten to them. My brain was on the brink of chaos that day. We had just landed, we were starving, and we all thought we were licked for good. 

You would think that something, anything positive would come and balance out the series of predicaments I've faced, but the final piece to top off the Christmas tree was the bitter cold on the Western Front. I remember trudging through the frozen Hürtgen Forest, my toes almost freezing off.  The men around me were coming down with hypothermia and frostbite, and Al and I had to crawl under the snow and hug each other for heat. That allowed us to avoid hypothermia - barely. 

Elbe River was the last stop before the end of the war. We converged with the Russian army, and we dealt a damaging blow on the German forces. Finally, it was over. Maybe Al's luck spread to me: I survived.

Sources:
https://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-veterans-day-in-their-own-words-20191111-77qe5tnam5afxgphcb5llt3lwq-story.html
https://www.mcall.com/photos/mc-pictures-war-stories-veterans-day-fraind-20191107-g6iik553xfcb7ppgtvqbkuexsy-photogallery.html
https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/exhibits/ww2/Pages/services-induction.aspx
https://www.britannica.com/place/Utah-Beach
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/01/06/how-america-changed-after-pearl-harbor
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/war-report-on-the-convergence-of-us-and-soviet-forces-on-the-elbe-video