Former Nazi Youth, French Legionnaire Joe Munch nearing the end

Joe Munch is a local legend, if you had lived in the Boise Idaho area during the past two decades chances are you have heard of him. In the last few years of his career with the Idaho State Patrol he could be seen patrolling in his cruiser with a large teddy bear dressed in a troopers uniform as he placed crosses at the scene of fatal accidents.
I had the honor to meet Joe a few years ago and spend a little time talking with him when he visited the state agencies I worked at as security supervisor. Even in his later years when I met him you knew from his presence and bearing that Joe was a man that should be taken seriously, when he shook your hand looked you in the eye, and you knew he was testing you. I like to think I passed his test.
To see him today as a 77 year old man undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer it is hard to imagine the path that brought him to America. As a teenage he watched as huge formations of Allied bombers brought destruction to his home town of Duren Germany. His father was sent to the Russian front and never heard from again, his mother worked as a welder in a plant building Panzer and Tiger tank's.
He had joined the Nazi Youth and at age 14 was called up to haul ammunition to German anti aircraft gunners.
After Germanys fall, his mother no longer willing to wait for the return of her husband, started dating a American officer she met while working as a clerk in a post war Allied headquarters. It was more then the teenager could stand, to him American's were bullies, men who had destroyed his homeland.
So Joe Munch ran away, and what else? Joined the French Foreign Legion completed paratrooper training and made more than 100 jumps, serving in Vietnam, Laos, the Congo, Kenya, Somalia, Tunisia, Morocco and Algiers. He spent one year and a half as a POW in Vietnam.
Later in Algeria he joined the Organization of the Secret Army in revolt against DeGaulle's support for the Alegerian independence.
"We took the city of Algiers and held it until de Gaulle sent in his regulars. I was a legion officer by then. The officers were sent to a military prison in Constantine for treason. I was there nine months. I saw them execute officers. When my turn came, they said I could be executed or join a disciplinary company in the Sahara Desert. Which would you choose?"
Now having betrayed the OAS he slept with a machine gun,
"At this point I was working for de Gaulle's side," he said. "We were fighting rebels who were fighting him. Every week we rounded them up, made them dig their own graves, then 'bing, bing, bing.'
" If I did that now, I'd be hanging on a gallows. I'd do it differently now. But with the information I had then, I did what I had to do. Life didn't mean anything to me then."
Then his life changed forever, the man who had wanted to be a Catholic Priest when he was young, traveled to Payette Idaho to be reunited with his mother, while there he met Shirley Crosby fell in love and never left the area.
He took a job at the Idaho penitentiary rising to lieutenant, captain and chief of security. He also taught at the police academy and at sheriffs' departments. In 1972 the prisoners rioted and set their mattresses aflame, as the TV cameras were turning flames were 100 feet high, suddenly the iron doors were kicked open and out walk Joe, with a prisoner under each arm! In 1977 he exposed corruption in the prison administration and was fired, later he was vindicated. His unemployment didn't last long, working for the Ada County Sheriff's Department..
He was no fan of "political correctness", he was and is unapologetic about his harsh treatment of prisoners and later of drunk drivers, but he also organized Easter Egg Hunts for the prisoners and their children every year, and when two prisoners tried to steal the eggs, Joe just laughed, and then made them eat every single egg.
Now his sun is setting, a man who has packed more into a life then most of us could make up. He lives day to day, he has made peace with his past;
"When I think of all I've been through, I've been lucky," he said. "I don't want to die, but if it's my time, I'm ready. I'm not afraid of it."
God's Speed Joe.

 

a similar thread was opened by PzJgr yesterday

 

I had no idea, I didn't see it, and I can't find it, where is it posted?

 

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-today/29430-former-hitler-youth-reflects-life-he-nears-death.html

 

cheers Falk you got to the link first. Don't worry about it Jaxson, it was just a statement I made , not a judgment