I fought in the Battle of the Bulge, which was the turning point of the war. It was the last hurrah for the German Army and resulted in many casualties, including my own. The Germans were at their last gasp. Nonetheless they still wanted to do as much damage to American and Russian troops as they could.

A German manning a machine gun shot me and succeeded in giving me a flesh wound. It bled quite a bit initially, so it was alarming. The medic put on a different type of bandage than I had ever seen before. I now recognize it as a butterfly bandage and it did the job well. I only had to go to the field hospital, and ended up feeling very lucky.

Because of my wound I received a Purple Heart. I don’t think I deserved it, but that was protocol. At the time, we were counting points toward discharge. The Purple Heart was another five points, so that meant I was closer to discharge, and discharge was all that mattered to me.