by John McAuliffe | 12 Sep 2010 | Commentary
The following speech was made at the Rochefort, Belgium Town Hall on the occasion of John being made a honorary citizen of that town on June 19, 2010. Mr. Gilbert Stevenot, who was an interpreter in General Bradley’s Headquarters during WWII was responsible for the...
by Mitch Kaidy | 25 Sep 2009 | Commentary
For decades after World War II, Paul Nessman pursued the casualty figures of the 87th Infantry Division which fought in the bloody Battle of the Bulge and across Europe. Month after month, year after year, the Division Statistician spent his own time and money...
by Mitch Kaidy | 02 Jul 2009 | Commentary
I first met Lester Atwell on the Queen Elizabeth that was bouncing and cutting the waves, loaded with soldiers headed overseas on the Atlantic Ocean. Both of us from Brooklyn – I an aspiring journalist, he an established short story writer for the most...
by Mitch Kaidy | 22 Sep 2006 | Commentary
As below-the-radar as the 87th Infantry Division was among the glamorous units of the U.S. Third Army in World War II, it was actually a highly-acclaimed division. But it takes some digging to reveal the numerous commendations it received. The 14,000-member unit,...
by Mitch Kaidy | 10 Dec 2005 | Commentary
Whether he scanned the mail and pocketed it in his foxhole with artillery screaming around or snow raining down, or in a barn with bullets whizzing past, and whatever information it contained, mail from home was the oxygen of an infantryman’s life. Even when they were...
by Mitch Kaidy | 22 Aug 2005 | Commentary
Bastogne was under siege and effectively surrounded. The Germans knew it, and the Americans knew it. 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...