Dad's Army Life

As I watch a series of shows on PBS about the military, put on in honor of Memorial Day, my mind drifts back to dad and his military World War 2 career. Vernon L. Albin joined the 12th Cavalry at Fort Bliss, Texas because his family was poor and he needed to send money to them. The cavalry was disbanded and since dad had an amateur radio license and experience with radio communication he was trained as a radio operator and assigned to Patton's 3rd Army, 16th Cavalry Group, and sent to Europe late in the war.

Dad would talk very little about his experiences but they obviously traumatized him. Through the years he leaked bits of information that gave me a glimpse of this part of his life. Dad spent most of the war there in a jeep or halftrack relaying scouting information to the main body of troops. He told of touring through Buchenwald concentration camp and the piles of bodies. He told of the time he was running across a field towards a U.S. tank and was shot in the knees by a machine gun nest. He talked a little about the bitter cold of the winter in the Saar region. He told me about the time his colonel lined up the men after a battle at Trier, asking them "who stole general Patton's cognac?". (By the way, the missing case was put to good use by his group!) He told how his recon group was the first to enter Germany. He told of his halftrack hitting a mine and how he was blown out of the vehicle and landed in the road 30 yards away. His good friend who was driving suffered severe facial burns then. Dad lay in a hospital and for months the Red Cross would release no information to mom who was frantically trying to find out his condition.

Dad came home with a few items as souvenirs (someone stole the rest from the hospital when they took his duffle bag). He also came home with a severe case of shock to his nervous system that plagued him for years afterwards. His few pitiful items are not much for a person who gave up so much of his life.

Here are dad's thoughts about his war:
1) Junior officers were idiots. He regularly told them off and his rank bounced back and forth as a result.
2) The war was necessary but was a horrible time he would like to forget. He had nightmares about it for the next 30 years.
3) He did not want me to participate in the Vietnam war because he felt it was politically motivated and not needed to help make our country more secure.
4) He had fond memories of his early cavalry life but was bitter towards Patton whom he considered a "horse's rear" who was interested more in glorifying himself than in caring for his troops. Dad saw Patton a couple of times and he said the strutting image of a megalomaniac portrayed by George C. Scott was pretty accurate, right down to the ivory handled revolver.
5) Dad believed in fighting for a national cause but he said that today our wars ask soldiers to die without giving them a valid reason to do so.

His war experiences shaped his life drastically. They helped him to mature and gave him skills he would use after he got out of the army. They also led to occasional mental breakdowns for years after he returned. He struggled with this until after retirement. He also got the gift of trench foot he battled with until his death. What would he think of this current set of wars? He would probably not like the fact we entered into them at all.

All I know is that I miss him terribly when reminded by the celebration of Memorial Day.

Patton

I am sitting here watching the movie "Patton" and it triggered memories of a lot of stories my dad told me about his experiences during World War 2. He trained with the 12th Cavalry at Fort Bliss, Texas. In 1942 he was sent to New York for training as a radio operator. After that he was assigned to Patton's 3rd Army and sent overseas. He was a scout for the 16th Mechanized Cavalry Group the last part of the war. They were the first troops to enter Germany. Dad was wounded twice, once by machine gun fire in the legs and once by being blown out of a halftrack when it hit a mine. His job was to scout advanced positions and radio back reports.

Dad saw Patton several times and was not impressed. He thought Patton was an egotistical prima donna who sent a lot of good men out as cannon fodder. One day after the battle of Trier his group was roused early by a colonel and forced to line up. The colonel said "Something has happened last night and the general wants a quick resolution to it. Who stole the general's cognac?" It seems that someone entered the supply tent and absconded with a case of Patton's finest stolen cognac. The men were dirty and very tired after the battle. When they heard this pronouncement they fell to the ground rolling with hysterical laughter. Sergeants were running around yelling and kicking at the laughing soldiers. By the way, dad said that the cognac was excellent!

Dad made it to the level of technical sergeant. The military offered him a chance to attend officer candidate school but he detested the military discipline and did not want to make a career of it. The only reminders of this time that I have are a German bone handled dress dagger, an old Belgium pistol, his dog tags, and a plaque the military sent him. While he was proud he got through this experience it left a lot of mental scars. Patton may have been a great strategist but according to dad he only cared about his own career. "Old Blood and Guts" had little regard for individual soldiers.