The Long and Winding Road of War.

[Terry Penrod]

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The article linked below is a fascinating story of one young American soldier who, after parachuting from an altitude of just 120 meters near Normandy on D-Day and sabotaging a power station, was catured by the Germans, imprisoned, escaped twice, captured twice, tortured by the Gestapo, rescued by the Nazi military, transferred to another POW camp and finally escaped the Nazis altogether to join up with of all things, a Russian tank battalion to fight alongside them during their march toward Berlin in the closing chapter on the war.

His name Joseph Beyrle and he is the 80-year-old father of John Beyrle, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy.

STORY: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/05/07/003.html

Cheers, Terry

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[Mara]

I saw that earlier myself. It's such a great story. I wonder how many other such great stories men could tell about their war experiences.

[Terry Penrod]

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None quite so unusual or intriguing but a much older friend who is also a business client and a co-sponsor of our growing military museum here in Houston has books full of great personal WW2 stories. He was in Patton's original "Hell On Wheels" 2nd Armored Division and later worked in the intelligence branch. He and several of his old pals have an endless collection of stories big and small from that era.

Slightly younger but still old enough to be my dad are a couple of Korean War vets who I see at least once a week. One flew missions in the Air Force and the other was in the Marines. Both have some amazing tales from their youth that I know in many cases to be true simply because my own parents served back then and have related similar details about some of the same places, dates and events.

Those people are my real life heroes and I admire them for the way they handled the horror of war, post war adversity and eventually made something of themselves. They tend to be strong, resolute, very experienced in things that really matter and are generally hard working, successful and still open minded about most things.

Cheers, Terry

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