http://spectator.org/what-must-it-have-been-like/Ben Stein’s Diary
What Must It Have Been Like?
Ben Stein
May 30, 2016, 1:45 am
God bless those who have saved us over the decades.
So, it’s Memorial Day and I keep thinking, “What must it have been like to fight in the Belleau Woods, charging into German machine gun fire, getting hit by a large caliber shell, spinning around, and lying in the dirt with excruciating pain and dying of thirst, gunshot, lack of blood, and all for a country that is far, far away?”
What must it have felt like to be fighting on Pelelieu with the Japanese dug in, suicidally brave Americans charging at the Japanese who actually wanted to die rather than be beaten? What must it have been like to be in that heat and humidity and sand and scorpions knowing that your chances of survival were slim and you would probably never see your wife or mother again? What must it have been like to be freezing at Bastogne, short of food, short of warmth, short of ammunition, with the cream of the Wehrmacht attacking you and reinforcements far away?
What must it have been like to fight in the Philippines during the Aguinaldo insurrection, as my Grandpa Dave Stein did, on a mule, with crack Filipino guerrillas attacking with Bolo knives to cut off their heads?
No air conditioning, no decent food, a long way from his native Detroit. What must that have been like?
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