On my way to work the other morning, as I headed south from New Glarus a caravan of four Army jeeps passed me going north. This brief encounter brought back a memory now over half-a-century old.
On this morning 65 years ago, the world stopped what it was doing and turned up the volume on radios across the free world. Newscasts were just beginning to tell of the Allied invasion of France that had begun a few hours earlier.
The thoughts of the listeners were the same no matter where they were. Let us hope that this day will be successful so Europe once again will be free from the grip of Adolf Hitler.
In our little town of about 950 residents, 237 of the sons and daughters answered the call of our country to help free the world of an evil tyrant, the most evil man to ever draw the breath of life.
Of the 237 men and women who served from New Glarus, approximately 25 percent of them were in the D-Day Invasion. We only can imagine what went through the minds of these men this early June 6th morning in 1944. There could be no way that any amount of preparation could make these men not fear for their lives on this day. But given the grit of these men, even though each and every one of them was silently wondering if this was going to be the last morning of their lives, it didn't matter!
They had a job to do and they were going to be successful or they were willing to die attempting success. Failure wasn't an option for these men.
Growing up in post-war New Glarus was a pleasant experience. Our town was small enough that we could go anywhere and be sure to run into friends who also were out and about for the day.
Each summer we eagerly awaited the day when the National Guard convoys from across Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana were headed north for their annual two weeks of summer training at Camp McCoy.
There never was any advance notice of when the convoys may come through town, but the limburger telegraph always functioned flawlessly in letting all the baby boomers know that they were on their way. By the time the first Army trucks and jeeps arrived in town, we all were in place on Cliff Hoesly's front yard in our high seats to watch the passing parade of hundreds of trucks and jeeps coming through town. These convoys often would last an hour or two until the last jeep passed with its sign, END OF CONVOY.
We all were there, Mitch Disch, Roy McFadden, Susan Willi, Steve Zweifel, Craig and Larry Stuessy, Mike Hoesly, the Klassy sisters, John and Ralph Bethk, as well as numerous other kids. The above mentioned all held one thing in common - our dads were World War II veterans. Watching the convoys, we dreamed of what it must have been like for our dads to have been riding in jeeps and trucks just like these a decade earlier in Europe and the South Pacific.
Always the most exciting part of the passing convoys was when "our Army" trucks and jeeps came past. How proud we were to see the upraised red arrow of the Wisconsin 32nd Red Arrow Division come past.
To us, WWII was exciting. For most of our dads, it often was a memory best left in the bottoms of cardboard shoeboxes in the backs of closets. Boxes we would find after our dads passed on.
How proud we were that our dads were in "the big war." There was the usual photo on the mantle of dad or mother in their military uniform standing proud for the photographer. That photo was what we imagined being in the big war was all about. It would be years later until we learned the real truth. They might tell us where the photo was taken or the circumstances behind the photo.
If we heard them talk beyond the photo, which was seldom, often all we heard were the funny stories or how cold or hot a particular place they were stationed was. "Washington D. C. was much colder at zero than NewGlarus was at minus-20," my dad often reminded me.
As my generation is getting gray and bald and already through the first year of our Social Security eligibility, we finally have gained a much greater sense of what our parents went through during their WWII service.
We didn't understand why our dads sometimes became silent, sullen and withdrawn from us for seemingly no reason. What, we asked ourselves, did we do to him to get this from him? Nor did we understand the horrible headaches, sleepless nights, unexpected outbursts and the ghosts they carried deep within their minds of their collective past.
It seems that it takes their passing to more fully understand what they went through. And then we only can begin to nibble at the edges of their past. My coming of age came at the 2000 New Glarus Memorial Day program as my dad's name was read for the first time, having passed away a couple of weeks before. My boss, Cptn. Gary Beck, USN Ret., standing at my side, leaned over quietly, asking, "That's your dad isn't it?"
The memories really come out at that moment. As I think back now, I was young when my dad was the one reading the names of the deceased veterans, and now his name has been added to the list.
When we begin the long and often painful task of going through and sorting out "their stuff," the picture emerges that we never knew about. We find the beginnings of the story they never told us. There was what I thought was an unusual fascination with the Dachau Concentration Camp that I never understood, and respected The Old Man's need to not be asked. As I lifted the couple of sheets of newspaper from the bottom of the box, part of the puzzle began to unfold. A badly worn map of Dachau and a pile of black and white photos of Dachau.
I realized then, as most of us do at this moment, how much they loved us and were scared to get too close out of the fear of the ghosts of their past. We understand, but it's now too late to tell them that we understand. You are our Greatest Generation.
- Kim Tschudy's dad, Millard Tschudy, was a tech sergeant in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, but his outfit served with the British Army. He and his outfit were at Omaha Beach, the Ardennes and Central Europe and numerous other places they didn't talk about because of an oath of silence. Their outfit served as crypto-analysts, aka German code breakers.
On this morning 65 years ago, the world stopped what it was doing and turned up the volume on radios across the free world. Newscasts were just beginning to tell of the Allied invasion of France that had begun a few hours earlier.
The thoughts of the listeners were the same no matter where they were. Let us hope that this day will be successful so Europe once again will be free from the grip of Adolf Hitler.
In our little town of about 950 residents, 237 of the sons and daughters answered the call of our country to help free the world of an evil tyrant, the most evil man to ever draw the breath of life.
Of the 237 men and women who served from New Glarus, approximately 25 percent of them were in the D-Day Invasion. We only can imagine what went through the minds of these men this early June 6th morning in 1944. There could be no way that any amount of preparation could make these men not fear for their lives on this day. But given the grit of these men, even though each and every one of them was silently wondering if this was going to be the last morning of their lives, it didn't matter!
They had a job to do and they were going to be successful or they were willing to die attempting success. Failure wasn't an option for these men.
Growing up in post-war New Glarus was a pleasant experience. Our town was small enough that we could go anywhere and be sure to run into friends who also were out and about for the day.
Each summer we eagerly awaited the day when the National Guard convoys from across Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana were headed north for their annual two weeks of summer training at Camp McCoy.
There never was any advance notice of when the convoys may come through town, but the limburger telegraph always functioned flawlessly in letting all the baby boomers know that they were on their way. By the time the first Army trucks and jeeps arrived in town, we all were in place on Cliff Hoesly's front yard in our high seats to watch the passing parade of hundreds of trucks and jeeps coming through town. These convoys often would last an hour or two until the last jeep passed with its sign, END OF CONVOY.
We all were there, Mitch Disch, Roy McFadden, Susan Willi, Steve Zweifel, Craig and Larry Stuessy, Mike Hoesly, the Klassy sisters, John and Ralph Bethk, as well as numerous other kids. The above mentioned all held one thing in common - our dads were World War II veterans. Watching the convoys, we dreamed of what it must have been like for our dads to have been riding in jeeps and trucks just like these a decade earlier in Europe and the South Pacific.
Always the most exciting part of the passing convoys was when "our Army" trucks and jeeps came past. How proud we were to see the upraised red arrow of the Wisconsin 32nd Red Arrow Division come past.
To us, WWII was exciting. For most of our dads, it often was a memory best left in the bottoms of cardboard shoeboxes in the backs of closets. Boxes we would find after our dads passed on.
How proud we were that our dads were in "the big war." There was the usual photo on the mantle of dad or mother in their military uniform standing proud for the photographer. That photo was what we imagined being in the big war was all about. It would be years later until we learned the real truth. They might tell us where the photo was taken or the circumstances behind the photo.
If we heard them talk beyond the photo, which was seldom, often all we heard were the funny stories or how cold or hot a particular place they were stationed was. "Washington D. C. was much colder at zero than NewGlarus was at minus-20," my dad often reminded me.
As my generation is getting gray and bald and already through the first year of our Social Security eligibility, we finally have gained a much greater sense of what our parents went through during their WWII service.
We didn't understand why our dads sometimes became silent, sullen and withdrawn from us for seemingly no reason. What, we asked ourselves, did we do to him to get this from him? Nor did we understand the horrible headaches, sleepless nights, unexpected outbursts and the ghosts they carried deep within their minds of their collective past.
It seems that it takes their passing to more fully understand what they went through. And then we only can begin to nibble at the edges of their past. My coming of age came at the 2000 New Glarus Memorial Day program as my dad's name was read for the first time, having passed away a couple of weeks before. My boss, Cptn. Gary Beck, USN Ret., standing at my side, leaned over quietly, asking, "That's your dad isn't it?"
The memories really come out at that moment. As I think back now, I was young when my dad was the one reading the names of the deceased veterans, and now his name has been added to the list.
When we begin the long and often painful task of going through and sorting out "their stuff," the picture emerges that we never knew about. We find the beginnings of the story they never told us. There was what I thought was an unusual fascination with the Dachau Concentration Camp that I never understood, and respected The Old Man's need to not be asked. As I lifted the couple of sheets of newspaper from the bottom of the box, part of the puzzle began to unfold. A badly worn map of Dachau and a pile of black and white photos of Dachau.
I realized then, as most of us do at this moment, how much they loved us and were scared to get too close out of the fear of the ghosts of their past. We understand, but it's now too late to tell them that we understand. You are our Greatest Generation.
- Kim Tschudy's dad, Millard Tschudy, was a tech sergeant in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, but his outfit served with the British Army. He and his outfit were at Omaha Beach, the Ardennes and Central Europe and numerous other places they didn't talk about because of an oath of silence. Their outfit served as crypto-analysts, aka German code breakers.
