(Working title)

ELMER’S BOYS

An Extraordinary WWII Story of Survival, Faith and

Unexpected Brotherhood

move below elsewhere as supplementary materials?

PART ONE  1930s – 1941 By the 1930s, millions of immigrants have settled across the US, eager to become part of the patchwork fabric of mainstream America. Encouraged by President Roosevelt’s words for new Americans to integrate, they plant new roots from the east to the west coast. Americans tune into FDR’s fireside chats to keep abreast of solutions to the economic crisis of the Great Depression as well as the rise of fascism in Europe. In Germany, Hitler’s fanatical right-wing party is on the rise.

 American Childhood.

Eight-year-old Elmer Hovland stands steadfast on the dusty plains beneath the big open skies of Kenneth, Minnesota, wheat-blond hair waving in the wind. His parents are deeply religious Lutherans who emigrated from Norway to America in the late 1890s for the pioneering life on the great plains of Minnesota. The Hovlands set up a farm in Kenneth, a tranquil town with one crossroad and no stoplights. They pray before every meal, over their crops, and last thing before they go to bed, waking up every morning asking for God’s blessings on every new day. They assimilate into American life, give their children American names making sure Elmer learns the words to the national anthem and gives back to his community. In true Norwegian spirit, they teach their children that the group is always more important than the individual.

On the other side of the country, in the densely populated cosmopolis of Boston lives another boy from another immigrant family. Sammy DeCola, age 10, is Elmer’s complete opposite: short, wily, an artful dodger of sorts, Sammy is a street-smart kid with a thick Boston accent who wears an Italian flat cap. He lives with his large Catholic family. Like many Italians, food is central to their wellbeing and their lives revolve around it. Also keen to assimilate quickly into American culture, Giacomo DeCola, Sammy’s Pa, is fixated on his American dream - to own an American diner that serves up all-American fare like burgers, meatloaf and root beer floats. It’s a hard scrabble life in the city for the immigrant family but the DeColas are determined to make it. They love baseball and listening to Red Sox games on the radio. Sammy is raised with a lot of passion, unbridled laughter and a fallback to the lighter side of life when things get tough.  

By the time they are 15, as sober and rooted as Elmer is, Sammy is restless. The boys don’t know each other, have little in common and couldn’t be more different, but will come together as young men in WWII. While young Elmer helps his family on the farm, Sammy busses tables at the diner, like millions of other young boys growing into American teenagers, along the way learning the ethos of Americana: duty to family, community, God and country. They pledge allegiance to the Stars and Stripes and idolize their baseball heroes, Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio.

German Jewish boyhood.

Across the ocean, in Mönchen-Gladbach, Germany, Eddie Willner, an 8-year-old Jewish boy with a mop of curly black hair grows up fully integrated into German society. He attends a German school and most of his friends are Christians. At Christmas, Eddie’s Jewish father Siegfried plays Santa Claus for the neighbor’s kids and on Hanukkah, Fritz, the Catholic neighbor, dresses up as the Hanukkah Mensch to surprise little Eddie. Siegfried is a decorated German WWI veteran, awarded the Iron Cross first class for valor on the frontlines. He is well respected in his community as a war hero and a great German patriot. At home, Siegfried is a strict disciplinarian. Much to his chagrin, his little Eddie has a puckish side, and when Siegfried catches Eddie throwing water balloons onto passersby down below last straw from their apartment window, Siegfried scolds him harshly and starts to teach him self-discipline, certain it will help him in his life. As he grows up, Eddie learns restraint and his priority becomes trying to make his father proud of him at every turn. Eddie’s mother Auguste is a soulful, doe-eyed Jewish beauty who moves through life with an air of lightness, plays the piano and loves her cat Mimi.

Germany is reeling from economic depression in the aftermath of the defeat of World War I. People are destitute and hungry. Adolf Hitler promises to make Germany great again and is appointed chancellor. By and large Germans follow Hitler and by 1936 the Gestapo is placed above the law.

A popular and likeable child, Eddie has never been bullied but now, for the first time, his classmates see him through a different lens. He is confused when his once good friends throw rocks at him and call him “dirty Jew.” Eddie and all Jewish children are kicked out of the German school and Eddie is dropped from his beloved soccer team. He is heartbroken when the friends he grew up with say nothing in his defense. Then they turn on him. Soon they will join the Hitler youth.

Kristallnacht.  (November 9, 1938 )

The Night of Broken Glass in November 1938 hits like an explosion that shatters throughout Germany demolishing Jewish homes and businesses and sends Jews fleeing. Jews are violently attacked, called “subhuman,” forced to wear a yellow star, stripped of their rights and their citizenship. Eddie watches as his synagogue burns to the ground. When a local firefighter tries to douse the flames, a stormtrooper slices the hose.

Siegfried and Auguste look for ways to get the family out of Germany. When they are unable to find a way out, they put 11-year-old Eddie on a train to Belgium with a note pinned inside his jacket to be picked up and cared for by any family willing to take him in.

Drafted (1940s)

In the United States, the Great Depression is winding down and America’s future is looking brighter. Now 18, Elmer is toughened by an arduous pioneering life, humbled by a pious one. Facing drought and dust on the farm in the summer, he learns Friluftsliv in the winter, the Norwegian notion of embracing the cold, “a gift,” his father says, “to those who can stand it.” Sammy meanwhile hustles round the clock at the diner. School during the day and the diner every day after school, he dons his white shirt, red waist apron and envelope hat. Days, nights, weekends and holidays too, whenever Pa needs him, he cleans, serves coffee, and works as a short order cook. Overworked and underpaid, driven to the brink of ??he looks for a way out of having to work long hours at a job he has grown to detest.

His father becomes emotionally unavailable and their relationship is strained. Sammy graduates high school one year later than his classmates having lost too much time due to his father’s need for his help in the diner. The day after Pearl Harbor is bombed, Sammy happily throws in his apron, quits the diner and Private DeCola takes the oath to serve his country. For Elmer the war comes at a bad time. At 21, he has just met a “pretty girl” and wants to be with her all the time. Before he is drafted, he proposes and they marry right away.  

Scramble (1940/41)

In Germany, there is a full-on scramble for refuge. Jews are trying to get out of Germany any way they can. Siegfried and Auguste flee, first leaving a few valuables like their silver family menorah with Fritz, the Christian neighbor, telling him they’ll be back to get it “when all this blows over.” They flee over the border to Belgium, find Eddie and go on the run. When the Nazis march into Belgium, Eddie and his parents flee to France. When the Nazis march into France, Eddie and his parents are caught and imprisoned in an internment camp until a French guard helps them escape, telling them, “Au revoir, bon chance.” Eddie and his parents escape to southern France and are taken into hiding in the pretty little wine-making village of Ortaffa on the Mediterranean coast where they are given false papers by the mayor and hidden by the priest in the back of the church. But one day someone betrays them and the family is caught. Vichy Nazi sympathizing police punish the mayor and priest and send the family to the Paris collection point at Drancy where the Nazis are rounding up Jews, putting them in cattle cars and telling them they are going back to Germany “to work.”  

PART TWO  1942 – 1944

Nazism spreads throughout Europe. Jews and other “undesirables” are deported to ghettos and herded into concentration camps as part of Hitler’s “final solution.” Americans hit the beaches of Normandy. Allied with Great Britain and the Soviet Union, WWII is underway.

America prepares for war

Red, white and blue recruitment posters of Uncle Sam flood every town. Streamers and banners with patriotic messages go up in shop windows and train stations. At the dock, Sammy says good-bye to his family. His relationship with his father still tense, his father pats his cheek, looks him in the eye and tells him in Italian, “Make your Pa proud.” Elmer kisses goodbye his Harriet who is newly pregnant with their first child. He lingers until he must let her go, pained to leave his love behind.

At in-processing, the soldiers are given tests and questionnaires to match their aptitude with their roles in war. They are car mechanics, welders, bus drivers, farmers, and high school football players who become infantrymen, radio operators, and half-track drivers. Sammy naturally becomes a cook.

Elmer scores high on his math and mechanical aptitude tests. He only has a high school education, but a captain tells him he’s going to be an officer. Only ever having thought of himself as ‘one of the guys,’ Elmer says, “I don’t want to be an officer.”

“Well son,” the captain says, “You don't have a choice. Congratulations, you’re going to be an armor officer.” After training, they are assigned to Third Armored “Spearhead” Tank Division which will lead on the frontlines of battle. The recruits are issued uniforms, boots, a helmet, dog tags and a small pocket combat prayer book. They sign their wills, a colonel barks a “give ‘em hell” speech and they are off to war.

Cosel – Łazy – Auschwitz, Poland

In Paris, France, Eddie and his parents, are sealed into cattle cars. After three stifling days, the doors are unlocked, and they find themselves in Nazi-occupied Poland. All males 16 to 50 are ordered off the train. Eddie, who had turned 16 only one month before, clings to his mother until she pushes him out. At 48, Siegfried just makes the cut. Men and boys line up for what will be their first selection of many. Each selection will determine their fate: Fit or unfit for slave labor. The unfit are marched off to their deaths. An SS man carefully looks over Siegfried. His military bearing seems to impress. Eddie follows his father’s lead, this small boy, chest out, shoulders back, chin up, ready to work. “To the right.” They both make the cut. Women, children and the elderly remain on the train headed for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auguste becomes one of more than one million people who will be murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz Birkenau. The Holocaust is underway.

The Łazy camp is Siegfried and Eddie’s sobering introduction to the slave labor system. Here they must get used to heavy manual labor. In the spring of 1943, a new kid arrives in the camp. Mike Swaab is a scrappy 15-year-old Dutch Jewish kid who lived near Anne Frank in Amsterdam. Mike’s family has already been murdered so he arrives in Łazy alone and terrified. Siegfried and Eddie take Mike under their wing. Siegfried teaches the boys how to take care of themselves, self-treat blisters on their feet, eat burnt wood to curb diarrhea, to savor their piece of bread instead of downing it all at once. After a few months, Eddie, Mike and Siegfried are transferred to Auschwitz where things get worse.

Launch to War (1944)

In New York harbor, the new recruits board the Aquitania and other ships.

The “Spearhead” crews get to know one another. Lieutenant Elmer Hovland meets another officer, Lieutenant Charles Myers. Both 21-years old, they will be tank platoon leaders, and they hit it off immediately. The enlisted men also meet one another: Private Sammy DeCola meets Private Fred Headrick, a tall red-haired freckled boy from Chattanooga, Tennessee who smiles a lot, oozes southern charm, says with a slow drawl, “DeCola? Is that / Zat your real name? I’m gon’ call you Pepsi .” After that day, Sammy becomes just “Pepsi.” They meet Private Vance, a wide-eyed baby-faced farmer from Mississippi, and the others, boys 18 - 22 years old, coal miners, steel mill workers, iron ore workers, a cross section of America, first generation and immigrants, native born and sons of bluebloods, who hail from working class families from the Bible Belt to the Rust belt to the Sunbelt. All are excited and nervous, but beyond that they have hardly anything in common— they are separate individuals, alone in their thoughts, new acquaintances who must learn to become a team in war.

Blechammer I. Auschwitz subcamp. (1944)

Eddie, Siegfried and Mike enter Auschwitz through the iron gate, “Arbeit Macht Frei.” (Work makes you free.) They are ordered into a shower. Eddie doesn’t trust it, and runs back out, but is forced back in. It is indeed a shower; he is relieved to see water spray from the showerhead. Their hair is shorn deloused and tattooed. (Some 2,000 boys behind them in line is 15-year-old old Eli Wiesel.) Next they are given cotton blue and white striped uniforms with a yellow star patch identifying them as Jews, and set to slave labor.

Auschwitz subcamp Blechhammer is a synthetic oil refinery making fuel for German war weapons. This camp is brutal. Here the SS guards patrol with machine guns and killer dogs, and call the inmates “pigs” and “shit.” Sharpshooters posted in watchtowers monitor the inmates’ every move. Every day starts and ends with an assembly formation on the Appelplatz (roll call field) where a selection of the fittest weeds out the weak who will simply be pulled out and murdered. At this camp, there is little food, more beatings, and an electric fence that keeps the inmates from escaping.

 Their first encounter with uniformed SS Nazi guards at the Auschwitz subcamp and they are ruthless. One of the cruelest is a guard the prisoners call Tom Mix, after the American cowboy screen idol. He waves his whip like a lasso before he cracks it, often on unsuspecting prisoners, and fires his double-holstered pistols at will, killing inmates for pure sport.

Siegfried continues to guide and toughen up Eddie and Mike, teaching them to manage starvation, to take a hit/beating without flinching. To the Nazis this is a sign of strength and personal discipline. This is the beginning of a descent into hell.but the Americans are on the way.

St-Lô, France (1944) June 1944

Company D’s baptism of fire comes in the hedgerows of the French countryside at Villiers Fossard. By St-Lô, their crews’ confidence going into war, however, takes a backseat when they discover, to their great shock, their Sherman tanks are veritable death traps. Easily igniting on impact, projectiles seer through the armor like a hot knife through butter, killing those inside or seeing panicked crews barely scramble out to safety. The German Panzers are far superior.

“Redhead” Fred, “Baby Face” Vance and the rest of the tankers move into battle, stunned when, only one week in, their 19-year-old buddy, is the first crewmember killed in action. In Myers’ tank, Vance and Fred are brought to a halt when a loader freezes from fear, putting the entire crew’s lives in jeopardy. Some lose their cool but Fred calms the terrified soldier reminding him that their lives depend on him, “You can’t let us down, buddy.” Fred learns everyone’s job-- loader, gunner, driver, even tank commander, so he can fill in the next time someone freezes. To make matters worse, their company commander, Captain McD, proves to be inept. Led by ego, he is cocky but unsure, and slow to make decisions in battle which puts missions and lives in jeopardy. Elmer on the other hand, is a natural leader, confident and grounded, with good instincts. He understands tank machinery,quickly learns tactics of war and he understands men. He unofficially takes the lead in battle. Behind the scenes, he asks God to guide him.

 Elmer and Myers, begin to form a friendship; they work extremely well in tandem as tank platoon leaders. Under their leadership, Fred, Vance and the rest adjust to war and learn to gel as a tightly knit team. All are pulled closer together due to Cpt McD’s ineffectiveness and Elmer’s leadership. Pepsi and his kitchen trucks follow closely behind the tanks. He makes every effort to get good food to the boys of Company D to sustain morale but mostly it’s dry field k-rations which he makes light of, “What’s ya’ pleasure -   pork loaf surprise or mystery meat?” At 25, Pepsi is one of the oldest and therefore wisest among them. The crews grow to love him for his hot chow and for his listening ear, and much-needed sense of humor: “Come and get it. Mama’s got suppah ready.” In one scene, one of Pepsi’s mobile kitchen trucks is hit by enemy artillery, wiping out some of the kitchen crew and a few soldiers standing in the chow line. All are shocked that no one is safe, not even the mess trucks traveling behind the tanks.

Buttoned up inside their metal tanks, Elmer, Myers, Fred and Vance take punishing hits, losing comrades along the way. While some of the boys of Company D had talked big at first, bragging they were going to “club the Krauts, get it over with and be home in three weeks,” all are traumatized by the reality that anyone could be here one minute and gone the next. The crews of D Company push through France and Belgium, then are told they will lead the assault on the Dragon’s Teeth in Stolberg, Germany

Blechhammer II - Auschwitz

Life takes a turn for the worse for Eddie, Mike and Siegfried. The goal is survival: getting food, appearing robust and ready to work at every roll call selection, and staying off of Tom Mix’s radar. By July, American bombers are bombing high value targets like oil refineries, munitions factories, marshaling yards, airstrips. Blechhammer oil refinery is made a top priority target. American B24 Liberators fly death-defying missions against the heavily defended complex, dropping 500 or 1000 pound bombs which obliterate parts of the Blechhammer plant, each blast chipping away at the industrial capability of the Nazis. During the bombings, the SS run to take cover in concrete bomb shelter bunkers built by the inmates, but the inmates are left to fend for themselves out in the open and many prisoners die this way. Nevertheless during the bombings, the inmates cheer, thrilled that the Allies are on the way to save them. Tom Mix fumes at the cheering, takes retribution on their glee by randomly machine gun firing into a crowd of inmates, killing many. Eddie is caught in one of these mass shooting sprays, suffering a gouging wound to the head.

Sabotage is punishable by death. Even so, during one bombing Eddie and Mike squeeze into an empty Einmannbunker, a concrete bunker meant for one SS man and strictly off limits to prisoners. Once inside, the boys look out through a slit in the concrete and watch the bombing devastation all around them. They see firetrucks racing to put out raging 20-feet high flames at the main oil production facility. Inside the little bunker on the wall there is a telephone that connects directly to the fire brigades. Eddie picks up the phone and, in flawless German, does his best impression of an SS-Nazi officer rant, he yells into the phone,

“Nein Nein Nein! Detour! Detour! Go to Building 5. Bigger fire there! GO NOW!!” But Building 5, another critical depot, is not on fire.

“Building 5?!!” comes the alarmed SS voice on the other end. “How big is the damage there?”

“Wahnsinn!! MAJOR damage!!” Eddie yells. “Get over there now!”

Eddie and Mike watch from the slit as the fire trucks scramble to abandon the main facility and race to Building 5, as the main production depot burns to the ground. The boys share a rare moment of glee.

PART THREE   1944

FDR, Churchill and Stalin level a consolidated attack on Hitler as the Allies dive deeper into Europe. Slave labor is forced to churn out war machinery for Hitler at a frenzied pace. The Third Armored Division surges.

Thanksgiving 1944 

While Eddie and Mike are learning the ropes of Nazi slave labor, the boys of Company D bond as they become intimately familiar with war.  By the time they get to the Dragon’s Teeth, they are no longer green. They eat, sleep and fight together. Elmer, Myers, gunners Vance and Fred and their crews learn to sync together inside their thirty-ton behemoth claustrophobic, noisy, smelly, highly flammable death trap tanks, realizing that while the Panzers and Tigers have the advantage in almost every way, the Shermans can gain the upper hand if they maneuver quickly to hit the German tanks on their vulnerable flanks. So, while they perfect that maneuver, they also perfect bailing out quickly through the escape hatches or up through the turret, a panic situation every time because the Germans have a habit of machine gunning the crews as they evacuate the tank.

 Battle and killing the enemy becomes a mechanical process, a duty, a defensive “get him before he gets you and your crew” mentality but many like “Baby Face” Vance become sensitive to the daily carnage and ponder the point of war. After witnessing a friend’s death, Vance becomes introspective. Fred soothes him, “Hang in there buddy, we’re all in this together.” 

Cpt McD becomes increasingly erratic and the NCOs and crews begin to turn more to Elmer and Myers for leadership. In one scene, Elmer rests his hand on his holstered Colt 45 while refusing a direct order from a colonel to scout out a road which Elmer believes to be a suicide mission for his men. Like a football coach with truculent confidence, Elmer reassures the crews to believe in themselves and to trust in their collective strength as a team, to know that, without doubt, ultimately they would win. His confidence is intoxicating and sets the tone for the rest of the war.

A former college football and wrestling all-star, Lieutenant Myers has an uncanny radar for detecting imminent danger and shows uncommon bravery on the frontline taking chances for the success of the mission and the men. He often takes the lead to scout out the situation up ahead, once detecting mines nearly getting blown up by one. He senses incoming rounds before anyone else. In one scene, all is quiet, Fred looking through his periscope when it simply drops into his lap.  Everyone in the tank looks at each other at the oddity and shrugs before Myers yells “Incoming!” and sure enough, rounds descend. In another scene, they get the “all clear” after a battle. Hatches open and some emerge up and out of their turrets. Despite no indication of another imminent attack, Myers yells on the radio, “No! Get back in!” before a volley of rounds rains down on the company.

     Myers becomes a company favorite for his gutsy daring and for things like passing off his officers’ alcohol rations to his enlisted soldiers.Stu Fred and the crews are more than happy to partake. Baby Face Vance abstains. Young, chaste and cerebral, he would rather read a book.

     Elmer and Myers prove to be a dynamic duo as platoon leaders, learning to move and shoot as an effective fire team, they charge each other to be the best they can be. A healthy rivalry ensues, they try to outfox each other on the battlefield, trying to come up with more novel, clever manuevers. They begin to forge what they believe will be a lifelong friendship. Elmer continues to put his trust in God to lead them, turns to his combat catechism and prays constantly for his crews. Myers asks Elmer to teach him to pray, and he does.

While Elmer becomes the guiding force of his men and the soul of the unit and Myers the bold leader with a nose for danger, Pepsi becomes the heart of Company D. Like a favorite uncle, he counsels the boys through the toughest of times. His magnetic personality draws everyone in; he understands the human condition, their fears and the salve of humor. “You guys carry the heavy load. I just carry the spatula!” Redhead Fred’s calming way helps save fellow soldiers from cracking up. Baby Face Vance draws relentless ribbing from his crew for his slight aloofness, his oversized uniform, his purity, his boyish face with unusually long eyelashes. He begins to feel a need to prove himself.

A brotherhood forms. When Fred is unexpectedly transferred to another company, a few days later he simply steals his way back to Company D. Others tell of feeling empty when they were transferred or wounded in hospital, and feeling whole after returning back to their brothers in D. Despite improving discipline in the ranks, there are the inevitable misbehavings like the tankers demoted after sneaking away from camp to meet up with German girls in the bushes, or like Private Bizjack who spends time in the stockade for refusing to give up a donkey he found in a field.

As Thanksgiving 1944 approaches, the men think of home, reflect on the losses of their friends and some begin to wonder if their sacrifices are worth it. They write and receive letters. Elmer to his wife Harriet, “We have a lot of faith in our company. Men of faith in the Lord and family and country. It’s important to be part of a good group, in a spirit of cooperation and believing in each other.”  Myers writes to his parents. Pepsi misses Pa. Fred wonders if his 3-year-old will remember him when he returns home. Pepsi’s pal George shows him a picture of George’s sister, says she has the bluest eyes. Pepsi falls in love with a black and white photograph of “Blue Eyes.”

At Thanksgiving, battalion orders come down for cooks to forego field K-rats to serve their troops a good, hot meal. A near impossible task with limited food stocks reaching the field, the commander tells Pepsi, “Make it happen.” With nothing fresh in his own truck, Pepsi busts, swaps, barters, trades and haggles with other company cooks and local farmers for eggs, ingredients and supplies. On Thanksgiving Day, Pepsi and the kitchen crew present their feast from the kitchen truck, an incredible meal with all the trimmings. Elmer leads the men in prayer: “Lord we give thanks… let us never forget those we have lost in battle.. and give us the strength to see this war through to the end in your good graces, Lord, Amen.”

Final Blechhammer 

By December 1944, it’s freezing in Blechhammer. B24 Liberator bombings continue, each bomb hit reminds the prisoners the Americans are on their way. But with inmates dying from Tom Mix’s wrath, murder, exhaustion, beatings, starvation and typhus, many Eddie, Mike and Siegfried hope help will come sooner rather than later.

One morning, as the prisoners are marching to work at the plant, they pass a troop of British POWs marching the other way. Forbidden, punishable by death to even look in their direction, suddenly Eddie feels something hit his chest. It’s a tiny chocolate that one of the Brits has received in a Red Cross care package and thrown over. In a world devoid of humanity, Eddie’s spirit soars when he is struck by this one tiny act of kindness.

 In the camp, Siegfried makes Eddie memorize all the Willner family names, “Josef, Margot, Jacob Willner…” so that he can find them at the end of the war.

Then Eddie sees that Siegfried is sick. Eddie’s once proud father is looking tired and worn, has edema in his leg. The last time they see each other, Siegfried is standing near the infirmary. Eddie calls out to him and Siegfried says, “They’re sending me for a rest.” And then, this decorated German war hero who had earned the Iron Cross first class for valor and service on the frontlines to Germany in WWI, is murdered by the SS. Eddie is devastated. Mike, who has already lost everyone in his family, comforts him.

 While Elmer keeps his faith in God’s grace to guide his crews, Eddie is not waiting on God anymore. Now he and Mike must go it alone. They are determined to make it. They become inseparable. Eddie finds strength in his father’s lessons, and he begins to think of nothing else but escape with Mike. With the oil refinery now decimated by American bombings, one day the camp is abuzz that the Russians are approaching Blechhammer. Tom Mix orders the inmates to the Appelplatz roll call field and marches them out.

Christmas in Freyneux

In December 1944, the front unexpectedly erupts when a German counter-offensive suddenly attacks in Belgium. Company D makes a hurried 60-mile trek back to Belgium and into the Ardennes Forest to fight the Battle of the Bulge. On Christmas Eve, the company rolls into the tiny village of Freyneux. Sitting inside their tanks, crews shiver in the cold as they wait for further orders. Fred dreams of homemade Christmas sugar pies, sings Christmas carols to himself, and thinks of missed family gatherings. All is quiet, the unit expecting to engage the enemy later that day. In the dark pre-dawn hours, Lieutenants Myers and Elmer are called to an officer’s meeting which leaves Private Vance in his tank in charge. Unbeknownst to anyone, a platoon of four deadly Panzers is sneaking up on his position. Suddenly, in complete surprise, the Panzers come up over the hidden bluff and barreling into Vance’s view, threatening the entire company. Vance freezes. Then jumps into action: fires off a round hitting one of the Panzers. He wastes no time readjusting, loading, firing and knocks out three of the four Panzers. The lieutenants hear the commotion and scatter back to their tanks. Elmer climbs up the stone church steeple to get the only view possible of the incoming tanks and directs fire. He is blasted out of the steeple, stones flying everywhere. After the battle ends, the crews are in awe of Vance. Thanks to his cool head, quick action and bravery, Private Baby Face Vance, the gentle, mild-mannered young cotton farmer from Mississippi, heroically saves the day, and many lives. This will be a main topic of conversation in Company D for their rest of their lives, and earns Vance the moniker “best gunner in the company.”

Death March  

In the bone-chilling freeze and heavy snow of January 1945, Tom Mix and the other SS guards, warmly cloaked in heavy woolen coats march their 4,000 prisoners including Eddie and Mike who are wearing only cotton prison uniforms and crumbling wooden clogs (others have only rags around their feet) out of Blechhammer. With machine guns, pistols and attack dogs, the SS move their prisoners, simply shooting anyone who can’t keep up.

With the Russians approaching/advancing from the East, the mass of prisoners moves west into the face of a glacial wind. After 14 days, they reach Gross Rosen. They are exhausted but alive. Eight hundred of their fellow prisoners lay dead in the snow on the road behind them. The inmates are loaded onto a troop train heading to Buchenwald.

The Talisman Blue Eyes

In the depths of that intensely cold winter, the Battle of the Bulge rages on in a pinnacle showdown between the two enemies, seeing huge losses on both sides. By now Elmer is leading with bone-crushing determination. Not even the bitter cold is a deterrent for this Norwegian Minnesotan, and the crews are inspired by his ability to withstand the extreme conditions.

     When Cpt McD is wounded, a new captain is slotted for the position but in a highly unorthodox move, the company’s senior sergeants band together and march up to battalion. They want Lieutenant Hovland to lead them. That idea is rejected, battalion saying Lt Hovland is too young, too junior and too unproven to take command of a frontline company in the middle of combat. The sergeants stand their ground, arguing that they will fight under none other than “our lieutenant.” Morale in the ranks is boosted, soars when Elmer takes command.. Sobered by the enormity of the responsibility for 130 men’s lives and 16 tanks at only 23-years-old, Elmer, the new company commander, turns to his pocket prayerbook morning, noon and night, before every battle, asking the Lord to watch over his tankers. Myers, his best friend, gives him confidence and prays alongside him. With his characteristic humility and steely-eyed resolve, Elmer addresses his men for the first time as commander, men who have looked up to him since the beginning of war. He uses few words, his delivery as always understated but clear, “We’re all here to do a job. So let’s stick together and get it done.” That’s all they need to hear. They put their young leader on a pedestal and make him their north star.  

Just days later, Elmer is profoundly tested in an epic scene when, in all the chaos that is the many winding battles in the Bulge, D Company gets cut off from the rest of the division. Elmer gathers Myers, his other platoon leaders, and his seasoned NCOs, “We’re completely surrounded. We have two options. We can either surrender or we can fight our way out. We’re taking a vote.” It is highly irregular for an officer to consider the fate of his men by asking his subordinates for their input. The call is unanimous. “Fight our way out.” Elmer tells his men to have faith, and they will make it. He prays, asking for divine providence to watch over them, and then they blast out. The enemy responds with punishing resistance. Elmer’s command jeep is hit, his driver gravely injured. Under intense fire, and with no regard for himself, Elmer lifts the dying private and fireman-carries him for nearly a mile, saving his life. He would a silver star for his heroic actions that day.

After the Bulge, there is no glory, only exhaustion. After more than a month of intensive fighting, the boys hold up at Grande Enneille, tend to frozen toes, trenchfoot, battle fatigue. They wash up, read mail from home and write letters to tell their loved ones they’re ok. Pepsi who has carried George’s picture of his sister in his chest pocket as a talisman through the Bulge credits “Blue Eyes” for keeping him safe and his morale strong.

By now their brotherhood is cemented, built on the realization that they never have control over their destiny. Knowing they could be gone the next day, they value every smile, a joke, a prayer, a shared cigarette or cup of coffee, knowing it could be their last, and too often is.

Elmer tells Pepsi to make the boys a good hot breakfast. Pepsi tells him they’re completely out of supplies and have only K-rats left.

“Pepsi, make the boys happy.”

Pepsi gets some eggs from a nearby home. He has enough ingredients to eek out some weak batter but there is no oil to be found. So at dusk, when everyone is busy washing up, cleaning their clothes, taking a smoke break, Pepsi quietly goes from man to man telling each of them he just wants to help them clean their rifles. Instead he siphons the tiny vial of oil residue in the stock that keeps the weapon lubricated, and makes pancakes which he cooks in gun oil. He keeps this secret to himself, worrying for the next few days that everyone is going to get sick and he’s going to be in big trouble. Days later, he is finally relieved than no one complains about getting sick. Fred even tells him, “Best hotcakes I ever ate.”

PART FOUR  1945

The Tunnels. SS Malachit.

The Buchenwald subcamp Langenstein is the worst camp yet. With German production facilities being destroyed by Allied bombers, Project Malachite is Hitler’s super-secret priority #1 project to build tunnels underground, beneath the Harz Mountains, to hide the production and storage of aircraft and missiles like the V2, Hitler’s “secret wonder weapon,” the ballistic rocket he believes will turn the tide of the war in favor of Germany. The project is so secret, any  inmates working on it would have to die. In addition to being a labor camp, it is also an extermination camp. The SS would kill every inmate associated with Malachite in order to keep the secret from getting out. Life expectancy is six weeks.

Eddie and Mike (now 18) work 12-hour days. The cogs of heavy machinery and intense slave labor now at full throttle, inmates die by dynamiting blasts, flying rock, toxic fumes, exhaustion, starvation, disease. They are forced to watch “Sunday hangings.” Before he is hung, one victim, a teenage Polish Jew yells out, “Be courageous! Don’t despair! It cannot last forever!” His courage incites other doomed inmates to do the same.

Malachite is Hitler’s priority project so dead inmates are easily replaced, as SS guard Paul Tscheu says, “If you kill a thousand, it does not matter, because you can get a thousand to replace them.”

By now, Eddie and Mike are severely emaciated. Many prisoners simply fall over dead from malnutrition and exhaustion. The boys continue to lean on each other and share every potato peel. They have become the closest of brothers who find strength in one another, and challenge each other constantly to hold on for just one more day After eight weeks in Langenstein, Eddie and Mike have beaten the odds, but they know they are on death’s doorstep. Eddie dreams of escape now more than ever. He knows his body is failing but, while he cannot hold on much longer, he also cannot give up. If only they knew that someone was coming to save them.

Cologne

Exhausted from war, Elmer and his crews are given the task of taking the lead to seize the “Fortress City” city of Cologne. Where once in St. Lô, they were fresh and green, by Cologne Company D soldiers are battle hardened, dog weary-wasted and bonded for life. They exist in a perpetual state of burnout in their smelly field jackets, tanker overalls, greasy, unshaven faces, helmets cocked to the side, a cigarette dangling from their mouths. Where once they lived in shock and fear, now the whizz of an incoming explosive hardly phases them unless it hits close by. Fred, Vance and the crew continues their card game inside the tank as if nothing happened until they get the call to move out. 

     In Cologne, D Company tanks approach the Cologne Cathedral Square. Elmer stands head and torso up out of the turret, using binoculars to survey the buildings. Suddenly he gets a sinking feeling he must drop down into his tank. As he goes down, a sniper’s bullet pierces his metal helmet, sheering right through his helmet liner but not his head, and goes clean out the other side. For the rest of his life, Elmer will believe that God’s voice told him to get down. “If I didn’t listen to that voice, that sniper would have gotten me right in the chest.” Myers is shaken by the close call, knowing what could have happened to his best friend.

German troops fight for every inch of Cologne but when the American flag goes up over the city, Hitler knows his days are numbered. With victory close, the company rides a wave of enthusiasm. They continue to encounter heavy resistance when, once again, Myers bravely goes forward to scout what’s up ahead. His tank is hit and explodes into a ball of fire. Vance and Fred are wounded but make it out, but Lt Myers and his loader Arturo Casillas are dead inside. Elmer is crushed. His best friend is gone. He questions the price of war, and later that night has a heart-to-heart with God about it. Vance and Fred are assigned to a new tank. Fred keeps vigil for his dead platoon leader inside his tank. refusing to come out for days. Vance brings food to him.

In late March, the Third Armored Division launches its final drive into the heart of the enemy. Though tired and spent, the boys of Company D find renewed strength to avenge Lt Myers’ death and the loss of their buddies killed in action.

Final Death March

Rumors that the Allies are closing in set the Langenstein camp ablaze. The Americans are just 30 miles away. SS guard Tscheu orders a prisoner evacuation. Fear ripples through their ranks when every SS guard shows up on the Appelplatz armed with a sub? machine gun, leading the inmates to believe they are to be executed en masse. Eddie and Mike overhear four men making a plan to escape from the death march, and they want in on it.

The SS marches the group towards the tunnels. The inmates now fear they will be marched into the tunnels which will be sealed and dynamited, killing all the prisoners inside. Suddenly, the guards change their direction. Believing the Americans might cut them off at the pass before they get to the galleys, they march their prisoners away from the tunnels and the expected approach of the Americans. The SS carefully controlling the death march, Eddie and Mike constantly look at one another, waiting for the signal from the leader of the escape plan.

On the third night, at dusk, they approach the village of Welbsleben. Up ahead they see a bridge with a river running beneath it. Suddenly an allied reconnaissance plane flies overhead.

The leader says, “Go!” and the six take off in different directions. Eddie and Mike make a break for the river. The SS fire their weapons, unleash their attack dogs. One of the escapees is hit, but when Eddie turns to him, he says “I’m done. Go!” Then Eddie is hit in the arm but he keeps running. At the river’s edge, a dog clenches his teeth into Mike’s leg and begins to drag him back on land. Eddie grabs the dog by the throat and together they strangle the dog to death, until he releases Mike. They fling themselves into the river and run and run… until the river carries them.

Over the next several days, they continue to run and hide, trying to avoid local townspeople, German soldiers, police and Hitler youth who may kill them or deliver them back into the hands of the Nazis. They sleep in the woods during the day, one of them always on watch, and move at night towards the sounds of the front.

THE BREAKOUT

On the brink of death, Eddie and Mike stagger towards the whistling sounds of explosive artillery barrages, despite the dangers, the shelling and bombings only feeding their dreams of freedom. By the fourth day, they are singularly focused on reaching those frontlines. Freedom is so close they can smell it. But suddenly, in the dark, they hear whispers and see faint outlines of people in dug-in positions. Eddie makes out the shape of a powerful and deadly German panzerfaust, (a should-harnessed weapon) and the glint of a what looks to be a rifle. This is the Volksturm, the People’s militia, old men and young boys Hitler has called upon to defend their villages and “steel themselves and fight to the death.”

Suddenly from the darkness, unable to see Eddie and Mike approaching, one of them issues a challenge, “Halt, wer’s da!” “Who goes there?” The challenge requires a password. Eddie barks back, “Halt d”Klappe, Idiot! Shut up, you idiot!  Normale Streife! Regular Army patrol!” The response is dead silence… and the boys sneak past.

The next day, in the early morning hours just before dawn, the boys race through the forest towards the rumblings of engines. When they see the first American tank appear through the trees, they freeze. They look at one another, their disbelief melting to weightless euphoria. On the other side of the forest clearing, the gunner of Company D’s lead tank peers through his periscope and shouts at his driver to halt. He radios, “Lieutenant, you better get up here. There’s something your gonna wanna see.”

 In the morning sunlight streaming through the trees, two skeletal figures stand hands raised high in the air, pointing to the number tattoos on their forearms to try to identify themselves. The boys of Company D dismount from their tanks and approach. It is a gruesome sight. “We stared at them and they stared at us,” Fred would later say. Elmer, Fred, Vance and the crews are horrified to see two boys with twig-like limbs, barely clinging to life, shaking with huge smiles on their faces. After ten months at war, in that moment, they finally understand what they have been fighting for. Eddie and Mike gaze upon their saviors as if they are in the presence of angels.

Elmer’s decisions

Eddie is saying something urgent, but the soldiers don’t understand. “Get Hansen up here,” orders Elmer. Private/Sergeant Hansen understands some German. “He says there’s an ambush up ahead lying in wait for us. These two just sneaked through their lines and say they can show us where they are.”

Elmer tells Eddie and Mike to lead them to the enemy. He barks an order and the soldiers whisk the two frail survivors up onto the lead tank. In an epic scene, as the column rolls out, high atop the first of sixteen tanks, Eddie and Mike, blue and white striped prisoners uniforms flapping in the wind, take control. Above the roar of engines, they shout out directions down to Hansen below who simultaneously yells them to his crew and over the radio.

The company reaches the outskirts of the ambush. Elmer hands Hansen the bullhorn: “Tell ‘em they got 30 seconds to figure out whether they want to live or die or we’re going to blast them to pieces.” Within seconds, dozens of German men and boys emerge with their hands up in surrender without a shot fired.

U.S. Forces are under strict orders to bypass refugees. Nothing can be allowed to slow their critical advance. But Elmer simply defies the order. As the German POWs are processed sent to the rear, Elmer orders the two boys be taken to the rear of the column to be washed, deloused, treated for wounds. They weigh in at 75 lbs.

“Then bring ‘em back to me,” Elmer says. “They’re with us now.” Elmer takes the boys under his wing, tells Pepsi to “Put ‘em  to work in the kitchen.”

“What exactly do you want me to have them do, Sir?” Pepsi asks.

 Elmer replies: “Eat.”   The boys eyes are huge as they watch Pepsi as he makes them their first meal in years. He keeps the kitchen open for them 24/7.

Pepsi is heartbroken at the sight of boys teetering on the edge of life and death. The survivors’ strained smiles on their bony blue faces bely their urgent cry for help. Pepsi makes them their first hot meal in years, and over the next months, knowing they are fragile both physically and emotionally, he watches over them like a mother hen, instinctively (because he had lost his own mother at a young age) seems to understand the enormous upheaval these orphans were going through. “They didn’t know us, and we didn’t know them,” Pepsi would later say, “but they had been terribly mistreated and that is all we needed to know.”

Pepsi dotes on them, “You boys can even wake me up in the middle of the night if you wanna eat somethin’ or just talk, ok?” I dunno what happened to you boys,” he continues, chattering away as he’s clanging around looking for pans and serving spoons. “That shoonda happened to ya’, but it’s gonna be ok. We’re gonna get you all cleaned up, ok? …all fixed up like new. Don’t you worry about a thing. I’m gonna make you some pancakes and fatten you right up.” The boys don’t really know what Pepsi is rattling on about in English but they see the concern and the friendly gleam in his eyes and they will remember it for the rest of their lives. It is the first kind, gentle words they have heard in years. One of the first phrases they would pick up in English from listening to Pepsi: “K boys, whaddya wan me to fix ya.”

With the two survivors in tow, D Company roars right back in to combat, battling fanatical    resistance (which sees more killed in action including Jewish soldier Private Rothstein). To a man, the boys of Company D all take part in nursing the survivors back to health, imprinting on Eddie and Mike as if they were their mothers, their fathers, their big brothers, giving them their first clean clothes, first baths, first food, first smile, their first helping hand. They help the boys to learn to live again, to trust again, and to believe there is still good in the world.

Brotherhood  / Tribe.

 Eddie and Mike ride on top of the tanks and in the food truck, helping the crews as much as they can, making them coffee, washing their clothes, cleaning their boots. The soldiers ask Eddie to teach them German phrases so they can chat up the frauleins. In turn, they teach the boys English which, being polyglots (they speak French, German and Dutch), they pick up remarkably quickly. Between battles, the soldiers teach the boys how to salute, Fred shows the boys how to hit a baseball with a .. and a.., others how to shave using your helmet as a basin, how to clean a rifle and drink wine (given to them by a Belgian on their victorious trek through Grande-Enneille). Eddie and Mike learn about America: Pepsi describes hot dogs, root beer floats and teaches them how to make eggs “sunny side up, the American way”; Fred shows a picture his wife, others produce photos of their girlfriendsand pinup girls. The crews make every effort to treat Eddie and Mike like part of the soldier brotherhood and to feel like “real” American soldiers.

Then one day, with the soldiers looking on, Elmer presents the boys with their own Army uniforms which they don with overwhelming emotion and immense pride -  to go from dying prisoners of the murderous Nazi regime to being adopted by the victorious American Army. The soldiers help the boys burn their ragged concentration camp uniforms. Elmer gets the boys on the Army payroll, puts Mike to work in the kitchen and hands Eddie a loaded Colt 45 and sets him to interrogating German POWs. Elmer makes Eddie his right-hand man and Eddie follows him everywhere, emulates his bearing, mimics his walk, his talk, his spare but powerful manner of speech. Eddie becomes the translator and clerk, deciphering maps and documents found on the Germans, and becomes a simultaneous interpreter when Elmer needs to communicate with local government officials or question townspeople to understand what enemy activity had come through their areas, or when Pepsi needs him to barter with the locals for food. At Elmer's direction, Eddie pens a directive in German ordering the local German community to show up to a concentration camp to see and bury the bodies. The letter is signed by Lieutenant Elmer Hovland, Commander, Company D [….] Third Armored Division, and Eddie Willner, "U.S. Army clerk”

Not only had Eddie and Mike survived, they now had purpose, and they had a family who cared for them after they had lost everyone and everything. The soldiers become extremely protective of the two orphans who come to love and idolize their new big brothers who have invigorated them with renewed spirit to face their future.

Pepsi: “They became attached to us and we became attached to them. They became like our little brothers. They helped where they could, and we took care of them. Everyone loved them.”

…and, “They looked up to us and we wanted to take care of them. They needed us and, after all we’d been through, we realized we needed them too.”

Liberation

Eddie and Mike remain with Company D for six months, through their final battle, onward to meeting the Russians at the Elbe to Liberation Day and beyond. Throughout Europe, German soldiers surrender en masse. The Allies have won, the war is over. Europe is free.

The Allies push open the gates to liberate concentration camps and are repulsed by what they see. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials begin. Though many go unpunished, some SS guards including the Kurt Klipp in Blechhammer and Paul Tscheu in Langenstein are sentenced to death by hanging. The sadistic monster cowboy of Blechhammer, Tom Mix, disappears into the population.

In the summer of 1945, the boys of D Company are going home. They are ecstatic about returning home but pained to part with their little brothers, and Eddie and Mike with their heroes.

Having tried to find a way to get the two boys to America, with no path for them to emigrate, they are forced to leave them behind, and feel like they are deserting what they now consider ‘two of their own’ at the gates of an unknown future. A soldier hands the boys fake U.S. Army orders allowing them to make their way unhindered by Allied authorities who might try to force them into a Displaced Persons camp.

“What are you going to do now?” Elmer asks them.

 Eddie says, “Try to find our families.”

Tears well up in the eyes of soldiers and survivors alike, the moment lingers. Eddie turns in his gun. Standing in their army uniforms, the boys salute the soldiers and walk away.

Later Pepsi would recall the moment, “It was painful to separate with them. I wish we coulda’ taken ‘em home with us.”

PART FIVE   The aftermath of war  

24.   Homecoming  

Elmer, Pepsi and the boys of Company D, some deaf from the blasts, some missing limbs, return home to ticker-tape parades and a nation that honors their sacrifice. They get medals pinned to their chests, then put their uniforms aside and return to their farms, their mills, their factories and to the familiar surroundings of their youth to try to pick up where they had left off, to resume the simple lives that honored the values they had fought for, where hearing the national anthem and saluting the American flag took on new meaning. They live with combat stress and are haunted by those they could not save and those they killed. But their memories of saving Eddie and Mike live strong within them, and they have a better appreciation for prejudice and human suffering. They live fuller lives valuing their loved ones, their neighbors and community, just being decent, grateful Americans.

“The Lieutenant” Elmer Hovland disembarks in NY harbor then hitchhikes home to his Harriet and his infant son. He continues to be a benevolent man, a leader in his community and church, and doing decent things for others. His Bible was never far from reach. In his veterans interviews, he always held a bible in his lap.

MYERS. parents many like them put up his picture and .

Vance.

Sergeant Pepsi DeCola goes home to Boston, kisses the ground, then goes home to Pa, kisses his father on both cheeks and says, “I missed you Pa.” His father hands him an apron and Pepsi goes right back into the diner business. He also goes to find his pal George’s sister “Blue Eyes,” and marries her. George was his best man.

Three-time purple heart recipient Sergeant “Redhead Fred” Headrick returns to the hosiery mill in Chattanooga. Corporal “Baby Face” Vance gets a college degree and a few years later goes back into the Army as an officer. Lieutenant Myers’ parents in Pennsylvania put his picture up on the mantel and a gold star in the window and mourn their loss for the rest of their lives. The boys of Company D volunteer at the VFW and the American Legion, become deacons in their churches. They marry, become fathers, then grandfathers. Their fidelity to one another becomes even more cemented with time, and they get together for reunions which are mostly happy occasions, where they recall the things that made them laugh. Pepsi finally fesses up to using gun oil to cook them that memorable pancake breakfast after the Bulge.

“Glad we survived the war,” Fred would say. “Never mind them damn Germans. You mighta’ killed us all, Pepsi.”

The Call

For almost 60 years they reunite every year, their reunions immensely satisfying, though they continue to be troubled that they had left their “little Jewish brothers” behind. Life goes on and they become old men. Then one day, out of the blue, Elmer, now 80-years-old (who had lost his beloved Harriet six months earlier), gets a phone call. A woman says she is Eddie’s wife and she’s looking for the commanding officer of Company D of the 32d Armored Regiment of the Third Armored Division in WWII. Elmer is dumbstruck. She tells him that Eddie has been talking about the boys of Company D his whole life.

“Oh my Lord,” Elmer says, sitting down.

Hanna explains: In 1945, after he left Company D, Eddie went home to find what was left of his family. When no one showed up, he went to Holland to find Mike who was also left alone in the world. (Nazi records would later show they were in fact the sole survivors of hundreds in both of their extended families.) Inspired by the memories of their unforgettable heroes and wanting to repay the country that had saved them, the two boys put in paperwork to emigrate to America. In 1948, they came to the United States and, with only an 8th grade education, no money, no merit and no sponsorship, enlisted in the US military making it their new families, Eddie in the Army, Mike in the Air Force, becoming US citizens.

They never forgot their big brothers and wished they could find them to share in their American successes: their promotions, their marriages, the births of their children, their first homes.      

Scarred but unbroken from their ordeal, they clung to one another to find their way forward.

They became Uncle Eddie and Uncle Mike to each others’ children, and remained as close as two brothers could be, and did well in America. Inspired by Elmer, Eddie became an officer (in intelligence), and Mike a Master Sergeant tech specialist, both ultimately attaining higher ranks than all the boys of Company D (except for Vance).

officer pic

Eddie and Mike became American patriots, proudly flew the American flag on flagpoles in the driveways of their modest homes. Eddie got a German shepherd that never left his side. His superior officers allowed him to bring it everywhere. In his first assignment as a lieutenant, Eddie was posted back to Germany to serve as the first American liaison officer to the BND (Germany’s CIA) where he worked alongside some former SS war criminals who wondered who he was, why he had a gouge in his head and an Auschwitz number tattooed on his forearm.

Eddie raised his children to pay-it-forward. Mike went back to Holland and died in 1973, Eddie’s wife says, and Eddie retired in Northern Virginia. After they hang up, Elmer calls Pepsi and Fred. “We found the boys.” All three call Eddie and talk for hours on the phone. Eddie says to them, “I just want to see you guys again.”

The Reunion

In 2002, almost six decades after they had last seen each other, Eddie hosts the next Company D reunion at his home in Falls Church, Virginia. Everyone shows up, including the Washington Post who runs a front-page feature on the story titled “Thanking ‘the Boys’ Who Gave Him Life.” All of  “the boys,” now grandfatherly old men in their 80s, shuffle in, including Elmer, Pepsi, Fred and Vance. Smiling and holding back tears, they greet Eddie. Pepsi is the first in line. Eddie embraces him.

     “Thank you for saving me,” Eddie chokes. “Well you know, Eddie,” Pepsi holds Eddie and looks him in the eyes. “It was my ‘onah to help save ya, but you know, you made me a bettah person. You saved us too. You taught us all a thing or two about life. You made us all bettah, buddy.” Then he embraces Eddie and breaks down, “You have no idea, lil’ buddy.”

Fred and Vance greet Eddie. “How are ya old buddy, you remember me?” Elmer doesn’t talk much but is overcome with emotion when he sees Eddie.

Later Elmer gives the benediction and Pepsi reads the names of Company D’s killed in action. Eddie makes a toast: Steadied by his oldest son, a U.S. Army colonel and West Point professor, Eddie says, “You are the kindest group of men I have ever known.” Turning to “The Lieutenant,” he says, “I have no words but to thank you for what you did for me and Mike. You could have bypassed us and kept going but you didn’t. You didn’t. And today I have a good life as an American because of you.”

The room goes silent. Then Elmer speaks. To the boys of Company D, Elmer would forever be their 22-year old company commander on the battlefield who had led the company through the worst of times. THEY HAVE PUT ELMER ON A PEDESTAL HERE> To a man, everyone still called him “Sir,” including those who had gone on to outrank him, like Vance who retired four grades higher as a colonel, and Eddie, who retired as a major. Now as Elmer begins to speak, just like back in the war, they all lean in closer to hear what their commander has to say. Fighting emotions, Elmer gathers himself and, in that unmistakable Minnesota accent, says simply, “We did good together, eh? We did our job good. We took care of each other, and we took care of those boys.”

The reunion is deeply fulfilling for all, the story finally having come full circle. Eddie is at peace finally having found his big brothers to whom he owed so much. The old soldiers are thrilled to know Eddie and Mike had made it to America, had been in the U.S. the whole time, and made successful lives for themselves.

After the reunion, Pepsi, Elmer, Fred and Vance become like family to Eddie’s children (me and my five siblings) who grew up without relatives as all were either murdered in the Holocaust or behind the Iron Curtain (Forty Autumns). Like a proud grandpa, Pepsi turns an entire room in his small house to a shrine to the Willner family.

 *  *  *  * 

In the end, it would be the sacrifices, the fight, and those lost in battle that would come to make its greatest mark on Eddie and Mike, that sobering reality that a nation had given up its sons and daughters so freely to fight to save Europe, and ultimately, the world. And they would never forget the kindness and humanity that the boys of Company D had shown them, giving them hope, and igniting in them a spark with which to launch a new beginning after they had lost everything. A generation of American boys from all backgrounds, from all corners of America, who went to war, fought, and freed the world from a tyrant, saved Eddie and Mike, and millions like them.

Supper with Pepsi. 2016.

Most of the boys of Company D have passed away, including Elmer, Fred and Vance, as have the boy survivors Eddie and Mike. Pepsi is 97 years old, living a modest life in Waltham, just outside of Boston. Having long since sold the diner/s, he now spends his days tenderly cultivating his prized red buffalo tomatoes in his backyard garden and, after nearly 70 years of marriage, still doting on Blue Eyes.

Over the years, Pepsi became a much loved surrogate uncle to Eddie’s children and grandchildren. He has turned an entire room in his modest home into a shrine to the Willner family with photos of weddings, graduations, a parent with a newborn, a child on her first day of kindergarten. Eddie’s grandson, (my son) 20 year-old Mike (named for Eddie’s survivor brother in war) comes to visit. Mike is a student at nearby MIT and this is his regular monthly visit to see his grandfather’s old friend. Though greatly slowed now, but still full of life, Pepsi hobbles around the kitchen, insisting as usual on cooking for Mike his signature Italian pasta dish with meatballs and tomatoes from his garden, “the way Ma used to make it.” They eat, laugh and joke around.

Pepsi has a long afternoon with Mike. Leaning forward, he labors to speak. At barely above a gravelly whisper, in a clear Boston accent, he tells Mike about the old days “during the wah,” when he was a cook, and “I fed your Grandpa,” and “boy was he skinny,” and “he didn’t deserve that… and well, we just had to take care of him.”

The End.