[PEN-L:338] Re: Re: Saving Private Ryan

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jason Hecht:
>My dad was a front-line grunt (infantryman) who, at 19, was fighting in the
>Battle of the Bulge.  He never, ever, spoke about his experiences in great
>detail, despite my prodding, and I have never pushed him to tell me.  Though
>I'd say his politics are conservative (but thoughtful), he NEVER embellished
>his war experiences in patriotic terms - in fact he never went in for the
>flag-waving VFW stuff.

My dad was a mess sergeant who also fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He
was part of the supply lines to the troops under siege at Bastogne,
bringing in fresh water and food. He got a Bronze Star carrying a wounded
officer to safety. He never spoke much and was even more tight-lipped when
it came to the Battle of the Bulge, which my mom said had a horrible effect
on him psychologically.

He was fairly typical of his generation in the Catskills. His dad came from
Russia and spoke Yiddish. He never went to college and his first job was as
a truck-driver. He joined the army because it represented upward mobility.
After the war, when prosperity became general he opened up a fruit and
vegetable store just like the kind that the Koreans operate in NYC.

When the Vietnam war started, his only concern was that I stay out of the
army. He was a supporter of the war but not a vocal one. After I joined the
SWP, he was upset more about their anti-Zionism than their anti-capitalism.
He confessed to me that he joined the Communist Party after WWII. It turns
out that this meant filling out a membership card at an American Labor
Party rally. All in all, he was completely apolitical. He died in 1970 and
I am sorry that I didn't get to know him better. His aloofness was
attributable to the fact that I was nearly a year old when he came back
from Europe. They say that GI's had a hard time bonding with their children
when they were this old.

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)