The barracks held 40 men. The Germans treated the POWs pretty well, but the meals weren't anything to write home about. "They fed us turnip soup, rutabagas, black bread and some concoction that looked like grass with maggots in it," Bahnsen said.
Later, while soaking up some sun in the unit's courtyard, he lit a cigarette off the stub of an old one, because patients aren't allowed to carry matches. "I've never considered myself special just because I was a soldier during World War II. I just figured I was doing my duty for my country."
As Bahnsen smoked and remembered, former Army nurse Geneve McFadden was watching television in her room in another part of the VA Medical Center Nursing Home.
McFadden, 78, joined the Army in 1941, enlisting at Richmond, Va. She was assigned to the military hospital at Fort Bragg, N.C.
She's a tiny, elegant woman with a voice just a notch above a whisper. "I was very young, and there weren't many women in the Army at that time," she said. "My grandmother was a nurse, and I'd wanted to be one ever since I was a child. My first job in the hospital was in registration, but later they moved me to the wards. I liked being in the wards best, because it gave me a chance to help people."
When McFadden completed her hitch, she enrolled in nursing school at the Medical College of Virginia. "Nursing isn't a easy job," she said, "but it is a rewarding job. You keep busy. You meet people. You make a difference."
Then McFadden folded her hands primly onto her lap, leaned forward in her chair and said, "Nurses are heroes, you know."
Those looking for World War II veterans at the VA Center will also find them among the center's out-patients and volunteers.
Even people who have never met James E. Chambers recognize his face right off the bat - he's the spitting image of Santa Claus, right down to the snowy-white beard on his chinny-chin-chin.
Chambers, 85, who was in the Army from 1944 to 1946 and then put in another 32 years in the Army Reserve, was sitting in the crowded lobby of the VA Medical Center's Patient Tower Hospital leafing through the obituary section of that morning's Dayton Daily News as he waited for a prescription to be filled. He was wearing suspenders and a red-white-and-blue T-shirt with the words GOD BLESS AMERICA emblazoned on the front.
"I check the obits in the paper every day to make sure my name isn't in there," he quipped.
"I'm a lifetime member of several veteran's organizations, so I know lots of WW II vets. Lots of them are making the obituary section of the paper these days . . . and darned few of them are older than me."
For many years, Chambers was a school-crossing guard in Hamilton. The kids called him "Ho-Ho" and "Santy."
"I joined the Army to get away from my ex-wife," he said. "I never saw combat, but I enjoyed my time in the service. Sometimes I volunteered for KP duty, because I liked to eat eggs and drink coffee."
When the Korean War began, Chambers tried to re-enlist. He signed up for active duty, but never got the call.
As Chambers thumbed through his newspaper, Vandalia's Art Schlecht, a VA Center volunteer, was on duty behind the reception desk in the lobby of the Patient Tower Hospital.
The 79-year-old Schlecht, a VA volunteer for 12 years, spent three years dodging German U-Boats in the North Atlantic.
"They called us the 'Suicide Squad.' We carried a varied cargo that included bombs, airplanes and tanks, and enemy subs were always trying to get us in their periscopes," he said. "We had some close calls, including high-level bomber attacks, but I survived them all. We were young back then, and we didn't have any fears. The Navy was an experience $1 million couldn't buy."
When the war ended, Schlecht was supposed to get a 30-day leave, but was sent to the South Pacific instead.
"We were about 400 miles from Japan when they dropped the big one on Hiroshima. We were real happy it was over, and we thought it was the right thing to do, because it ended the war and saved many lives."
At least once a year, Schlecht gets to share his war experiences with Vandalia Butler High School students.
"They come to my home as part of their history class, and I tell them about the war," he said. "They ask me to describe the places I went and they want to know about the food we ate. These kids are interested and smart. I'm a class project. And I love it."
Like Schlecht, Scott - who enlisted in 1943 and served aboard the battleship U.S.S. Iowa until 1945 - has fond memories of the war.
"We were in 12 major battles, including Iwo Jima and Saipan," the frail, feisty Kentuckian said, glancing at pictures of the Iowa thumbtacked to a bulletin board in his room. "We missed seeing the flag-raising at Iwo, because we'd already left and were engaged in combat someplace else."
Scott was a signalman on the battleship.
"She was a dandy, the Iowa was. She was 896 feet long and carried something like 3,000 men. They called signalmen 'skivvywavers,' and we saw plenty of action, because that old ship attracted lots of fire."
The Iowa - dubbed "The Big Stick" - was commissioned on Feb. 23, 1943, at Brooklyn, N.Y. The battleship was capable of speeds of 33-plus knots and could fire high explosives weighing as much as a Volkswagen up to 28 miles with pinpoint accuracy. Scott returned from the service in 1945.
"(We) lost a few boys in the war, including Leonard Hughes, Richard McQueery and 'Growl' Henry," he said. "I didn't exactly get a hero's welcome, but folks told me they were glad I was home, and that was good enough for me."
During the next 12 years, Scott had three stints in the coal mines. "Never did enjoy it, but it was a job, and jobs were pretty hard to come by back then," said Scott, who has been married to his wife, Carrie, for 58 years.
Then he was remembering a night 60 years ago as clearly as if it were yesterday.
"I'd already enlisted in the Navy and I was playing my last high school football game. We won that night and I blocked two punts. After the game, our coach, 'Big Man' Davis took me aside and told me, 'Doggone it, Sam, just when I finally teach you how to play this game, you're up and leaving me.'"
Two months later, Scott dropped out of high school and went off to war.
|
