We all seem to have loved ones mixed into another nasty little war and they are constantly on our minds and in our prayers. In my half-century of observations, many things have changed, but the life of a soldier and his/her family has not in any significant degree. My father was today’s equivalent of a combat paramedic. He drove an ambulance and was assigned to the 9th Armored Division under General Omar Bradley.

He saw, I’m sure, every horror that combat had to offer. He never spoke of the negative things to me but could often come up with the lighter parts that they could laugh about when the shelling stopped and the rifles cooled. One of my favorites was about the actions concerning the Battle of the Bulge.

The armies were faced off, and more or less, along an extended front. The natural terrain prevented a flank attack for either side. The Germans marshalled a frontal push from the center, trying to force a wedge into our defences and make a “breakout.” Hence the term “bulge” because they very nearly succeeded, not breaching our defenses but forcing a large semi-circular curve in our lines.

The 9th Armored was sent up to reinforce the British and American troops trying to hold a containment operation on the weak spot. Now I doubt the facts of how the lines were held are recorded in any military archives, but we did hold ‘em and here is the real reason why.

Adolf Hitler was promising the German people all sorts of miracle weapons that were more or less guaranteed to turn the tide and allow the Axis powers to win the war.

He almost did it, too, according to my daddy. One of these miracle weapons was the infamous V-2 flying bomb which wreaked so much havoc in London and other British cities. The power sources for these instruments of destruction were a sort of primitive rocket engine that ran on high-proof alcohol. Somebody on their side had inadvertently left a 50,000 gallon rail road tank car on a junction siding fully loaded with super octane torpedo juice.

Surprise, surprise, the Ninth Armored Division found it, identified it, and proceeded to proof test it based on the “consumption process.” They were located directly in front of the Bulge which was where they needed to be. They used a portion of their high proof loot for fires to warm by and afterwards dug in where they’d thawed the frozen ground, swearing they wouldn’t move until they’d held the gate or drunk the hooch, whichever came first.

Well Rommel, or whichever German General it was in charge of the Panzer divisions that led the “aborted” breakout, extended the Bulge by several kilometers until they encountered the Ninth and a few other divisions who’d come to share the loot.

Well, as history records, we held the bulge. Daddy wound up with a bronze star out of the deal. That is a pretty “hot” medal and I asked him how we earned it.

“Well,” he finally said, “The main reason we held the line was, everybody was too drunk to retreat even if somebody ordered it. It was a done deal after that certain saturation point, and I was the one who found the tanker.

“We might very well have scattered like quail before that thrust” my Dad’s story continued, “had I not had the good luck to discover Hitler’s joy juice and turn his own magic against him. Them southern boys in the company were emptying canteens and Jerry Cans and filling them with what came to be known as “Hitler’s Hooch” so as to be prepared for the next engagement when someone from Eisenhower’s staff turned up and started handing out medals and confiscating booze.”

It’s a wonder that fool didn’t cost us the war anyway, but as Ike himself said (or was it Pfc Harpole?) “Incompetence will always be rewarded and manure in a sewer will find its own level.”

Back from the lines,

Ricky Harpole

(Contact Harpole at www.facebook.com/harpolive or www.colespointrecords.com)