Battle of the Bulge story at the fountain

We get our water from the fountain down by the Arlington hotel in Hot Springs, Conversations always take place because there are four outlets. and the assembled water bearers chat. I blabbed about our plans for a ww2 weekend in Hot Springs and my wanting the 40s dance to be at the Arlingtons ball room. this lady, I white haired old lady who still looked cute, said her brother had been killed in the Battle of the Bulge, he was two years into a Harvard degree , when he volunteered became an ast and then was called up for the European Overseas duty, and was killed in the Bulge, She herself had barely escaped the war because she was in the Sudatenlland when Hitler annexed it. they had gone over on theBremen and returned on the Europa and later both ships were sunk.

 

how many killed in ww2

during the conversation I had asked how many people had been killed in ww2. they asked ""civilans too?"everyone i said. but dont feel bad, until reading about it in a Magazine called ww2 History, i didnt know either.they guessed hundreds of thousands perhaps a million, are you ready?.................................54 million!

 

no end to the stories or to the effects of ww2

do u have a story? send it in. I heard this from a lady who runs a video rental store on Malvern Avenue in Hot Springs about a relative of theirs who had landed at Normandy in ww2. he lost a lot of buddies, now he was back to take the tour . he was fine until the bus stopped at the cemetary where his friends are interred. In an uncontrolable rush of emotion and tears he found himself unable to get off the bus. an old man who had not seen his friends grow old with him, but are instead in the fields above the beaches-forever young!

 

this ain't really my story, but i have heard it before.

My english teacher was talking about a short story i had wrote (ironically, about world war two), and he launched into a story about his uncle and his dad in the war.
His dad and his uncle were in different armies, and when his uncle got transferred to Normandy, his dad wanted to go just to see him. So the divisional commander pulled a ton of strings, talked to the Army commander (i can't remember whether his dad was in the Eighth or the Seventh), and got his dad over to Normandy. By the time he got there, my english teacher's uncle had been transferred back to Italy!
So, his dad was left to fight in Normandy, and the next time they saw each other was after the war! They couldn't even talk to each other by letter because the air traffic was much too heavy. It turns out his uncle had nearly gotten killed several times, while his dad killed dozens of Germans.