For all our troubles, we live in relative peace, prosperity, and safety. What follows is an excerpt from a GI’s memoir of WWII, about a couple he met in Belgium that offered to put him and his friend up for the night.
Together they drink wine, break bread. The soldiers ask about the couple’s family.
“W-we had a s-son,” Mr. Sisson recalls the husband saying haltingly.
“They lived across the street… Three days ago the Nazis forced their way into my son’s house.
They killed him, his wife, and the two children.”
The couple broke down sobbing.
Dobson and I immediately got up and hugged them like they were our own family.
We held them tight as they moaned and wept.
We couldn’t help it; both of us began crying with them.
For a long time, we held them.
Eventually we all sat down at the table together.
No one could speak.”
– I Marched With Patton
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier