Combat Stress -- November 17th,1944
-- thankful for being alive, and for the free beer later!
I woke up in a school auditorium alone in the middle of the room with a blanket, with no chairs and completely empty! There were two doors near the entrance and I opened one to find a young doctor sitting at a desk. I asked him to direct me back to my men, and he said I was going to Liege to the General Hospital there. We are in Broichartailis, Germany, and Liege is in Belgium 25 miles away.
This gave me time to think about when one of my men in the platoon disappeared one night without a trace. The Germans knew the day we made that last attack and lost all those officers and men . The Germans had captured this GI who was a full blood American Indian. He knew where my fox hole was and the time of the attack.
I felt good to still be alive, as I missed the bullet for now . While I was in Liege Hospital up on the fourth floor the "buzz bombs" were landing a couple blocks away. Some of the debris hit the Hospital and we could see where the bomb fell . The medics who were feeding me pills 15 at one time were nowhere to be seen. I stayed here only a few days . The next Hospital was in Ciney, Belgium about 30 miles South.
When I weighed in at this 130 General Hospital my weight was 125 pounds. They had a way to put a pound of weight on me a day by first a shot of insulin every morning at 7:am, and then wake me at 10 am serve a very large bowl of oatmeal. It was oatmeal for lunch and supper too!
I remember a week or 7 pounds later still being in bed when my body went into shock.
I woke up with both arms injected with syringes and nurses all around running back and forth. No one else had this trouble . The nurse told me later that if I had not "come to" in another minute I "would have been brain dead". I told her it was safer back in the front lines and to get me some winter clothes.
It was now 3 foot of snow outside and the 15th of December 1944 . They moved me out of that ward and soon gave me clothes and small jobs around the Hospital. I was put in charge of the linen supplies as an acting supply sergeant . At night I could walk down in to the small town of Ciney and get a beer or a wine, and I felt alive again!!
The Germans had came through here in 1940 and lost a tank in this town's square. We heard they were coming again . They started the 16th of December and the Germans would be here before Christmas. The old lady behind the bar gave us free drinks because we had no money and she said she would "rather give it to us before the Germans took it all from her! "
Uncle Frank -- 25
