Remembering my dad and his twin brother

Last night I came across a DVD made by my relatives at my father and his twin brother's 80th birthday party. This was twelve years ago. Uncle Murray died a couple of years ago and dad died last summer. I decided to write up a little about them and pass along their stories. I don't think they would be considered typical war stories; then again these were not typical men. I will try to attach photos of them as well. Thanks for viewing!

My father Lewis and his twin brother Murray were hardly typical men shipped overseas during World War II. From everything I now know about them, they were probably best described as a couple of oddballs. First of all, they were twins--very intelligent, slightly socially inept, Jewish identical twins, leaving behind their engineering studies at Georgia Tech halfway through their four-year program. They had taken a year off before going to college to earn money for tuition and expenses by working odd jobs, including delivering Western Union telegrams and selling snacks at the Miami football stadium. Dad had been a sousaphone player in his high school band (which surely added to his nerdy factor!) and he and Uncle Murray later became playwrights in their spare time.

Adjusting to army life was surely challenging for many. In hearing stories from these two later in their lives, however, it seemed they had more issues with the army structure and lack of rules, mistakes, and poor decisions made by their superiors than with the horrible life and death challenges other men faced. They were fortunate to have missed the major battles by the time they got to Europe in 1944, and their division was always a couple of steps behind any danger. For two men who may have been diagnosed with mild Asperger’s by today’s measures, they relied heavily on structure and order, and may have learned from their army days that the rest of the world was less concerned about such details.

There were some interesting stories shared about their experiences during their 80th birthday celebration. One involved my father volunteering to type dog tags shortly after becoming a soldier. “My mother insisted we learn two skills she considered absolute necessities: we had to learn to swim and we had to learn to type. Forcing us to swim, which we dreaded, and forcing us to take what was considered a woman’s course in school, may have saved our lives more than once.”

When asked if any soldiers present that first day knew how to type, Dad and Uncle Murray raised their hands. They were given the duty of typing up dog tags for the rest of the men. Besides the general information about the soldier, the tags also had a letter designation for religion. Dad and Murray had to put “H” for Hebrew. This information was apparently gathered for burial purposes. Dad and Murray worried about being caught by the Germans with the H designation. Dad went on to tell us “I had a brilliant idea! I made a separate set of tags for us, one with the P for Protestant designation we could show to the enemy. I thought I was clever until years later, when I learned how un-original I was—most Jewish soldiers had dog tags with the P!”

Dad and Uncle Murray also had an odd sense of humor. They were on the staff of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket magazine where they often told horrible jokes they thought were hilarious. One of their favorites I will always remember is the weatherman showing the graphic of the week ahead, saying, “Today will be Muggy, followed by Tueggey, Weggey, and Thurgey!” I shouldn’t have been surprised by the story Uncle Murray told that brought on their biggest laughs. It was March of 1945, and Uncle Murray was on patrol. He was told there was going to be an ammunition bombardment where the army would set off 50 million artillery shells that evening. His shift was over, and it was time for bed. When he woke up in the morning he asked his buddy, “What happened to the shell bombardment?” His friend looked at him with utter amazement and said, “WHAT??? You didn’t hear it?” Uncle Murray had slept through the entire earth-rattling, eardrum-shattering event!

There were other stories shared. Dad told of a terrible truck accident in which a tree stopped him from tumbling over a 40-foot cliff. He talked about the time they stayed in an old farmhouse, where some of the soldiers slept in the basement below the rest of the soldiers. One of them decided to clean his gun in the middle of the night and it went off, with the bullet missing my father’s head by an inch. He was furious! He ran down the stairs to see who had done such a thing, and quickly saw the young soldier shaken and terrified. All my dad could say to him was, “You missed!!”
The twins talked about learning Morse code which they never forgot. They could still carry on a little conversation, much to our amusement. They talked about the time they had to set up their radio operations in a basement where goats were housed, and how they would never forget the smell. They told tales of being sent for supplies without a map, being told “You’re smart college boys, you’ll figure out how to get there!”

Overall, while their stories carried an undertone of fear of the unknown, concerns about being in a foreign country during wartime, and the uncertainties of what the next day would bring, Dad and Uncle Murray never lost appreciation for how lucky they were. They knew they could have been sent to the infantry instead of the Signal Corps. They knew they were being protected by truly brave soldiers fighting for their lives every day. On Veteran’s Day 2014, Dad was awarded the French Legion Medal of Honor along with several other men. While he never said so specifically, I believe he had some survivor’s guilt and wasn’t sure he deserved such an honor. After all, others were telling stories of being prisoners of war and saving lives of fellow soldiers. He considered himself “just a truck driver and radio operator.” I hope he heard the kind words said about him during that ceremony—that all people involved in the war efforts, especially those traveling overseas, played a part in victory and in preserving our freedom. He died several months after the ceremony, and my mother wore his medal to the funeral. He will always be our hero.
View attachment 22744

 

Great stories! Thank you for sharing them.

(Topic moved.)

 

Wow...i wish all first posts were this good...Really wanted to see the pictures after the stories...
I'm sure we all agree that they both played their parts - Signals is no trivial part of warfare - and they deserve what ever is coming to them.

 

Lewis and Murray performed their duties as ordered. A salute and Thank You for their service to the country.

An enjoyable read!!

 

Thank you for sharing these stories

 

Stories such as this add (or at least can for those who are willing) an important dimension to our understanding of the war. Unfortunatly those who actually experianced it and can still tell them are few in number and getting fewer. Thanks very much for sharing their stories.

Knowledge not shared is lost.

 

Wow those were some awesome stories! It's always a great thing to have members such as you who share the stories of their relatives with us! Thank you so much for sharing and welcome to the forum :cheers:!

 

Wonderful ! These memories need to be kept alive for future generations to learn about the realities of war. Ordinary men who were wrenched away from home and family at the prime of their life.

 

Good stories! I loved the weatherman joke! LOL