Catching thousands of green 106th and veteran 28th Infantry Division troops off guard, the Germans swiftly poured a deluge of terror and death into the Ardennes Forest that mid-December, 1944.In their resolve to split the Allies and reach Antwerp, an American supply port, Nazi airborne and SS forces encircled Bastogne, a highway juncture critical to funneling supplies and reinforcements from Germany.
In bone-penetrating cold and blowing snow, the 101st Airborne Division fought back with other units which had been hit with the full force of the massive offensive, a drive, which, at its spearheads, initially outnumbered the defenders by six to one.
Read more Add your comments (1) 20.01.2008. 18:31
Whether they had been urban or rural residents, millions of World War
11’s GIs deeply absorbed values during their military service that
shaped their lives after the war. They learned discipline; discipline
day and night; discipline under fire, discipline in mud and snow;
discipline under the most dire and dangerous conditions. They learned,
no matter how impossible and threatening the situation, to achieve an
objective assigned by an Army authority: and this hard-earned learning
experience made all the difference in their subsequent lives.
So
thousands of them, especially those who had been educated/ disciplined
in the Army Specialized Training Program, a college program that was
later truncated, went on to towering achievements under the subsequent
GI Bill of Rights. Among those who served in World War 11 were two U.S.
Presidents, two U.S. Supreme Court justices, nine Senators, at least
six Representatives, as well as a raft of outstanding actors and
scholars.
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