There wasn’t time to feel lonely, but I certainly felt afraid. But there was nothing to be done about that feeling, and I certainly didn’t want to show that concern to my comrades, although I’m sure many had similar thoughts. Our greatest fear was receiving an incapacitating injury. As for being proud, we didn’t think in those terms. Instead we felt responsible.

The Germans were definitely our enemy. We always had a negative view of German soldiers generally, but we had a particularly negative view of the SS Troopers—the Storm Troopers. They were an elite group of German soldiers who were responsible for many atrocities.

Our negative view started as historical, but much of that was recent history. For example in the Bulge, there had been a tragedy in which SS Troopers mowed down a group of U. S. prisoners at Malmedy—it was known as the Malmedy Massacre—and that intensified our dislike. We viewed SS Troopers as real people, who were very intense and very highly indoctrinated and very untrustworthy.

It has been said, “War is Hell.” I couldn’t agree more. I saw many, many people killed. I myself killed a German soldier. You see, normally you fired at a distance and didn’t know what your results were. There was one occasion in which one other fellow and I were assigned to take three captured SS Troopers back to a rear echelon of U.S. troops.

The assignment took us through narrow pathways and into some woods. While we were walking on the path through the woods, the three Troopers started to talk to each other, which we didn’t like at all. But we didn’t know how to tell them to stop.

I recall yelling at them, and they shrugged their shoulders as if they didn’t understand. To make them understand I fired my weapon into the ground. They didn’t stop. I was at the rear, my friend was at the front, and the prisoners were in the middle.

I looked up and saw that the prisoner in front of me had reached up for a low branch. He held onto it with the intention of having it swing back and hit me so he could turn on me. It became obvious that they had been discussing the three of them jumping the two of us. He turned around to face me holding this branch. But I was prepared. I had a carbine that I held at waist height, and I fired into him. That was the end of him.

When I realized he was dead, I felt perfectly justified because it had come down to him or me. I will repeat: He was a totally untrustworthy SS Trooper. I had no feeling of conscience.