Battle Of The Fucking Bulge.

[byronius]

I’m almost finished with Atkinson’s brilliant third volume of WWII history. We’re in the Battle Of The Bulge; McAuliffe has just said ‘Nuts’ to Hasso Von Manteuffel from Bastogne, Patton is about to make the Wheel, and Montgomery is hopping up and down like a manic rabbit demanding more power. Young Americans are dying all throughout the Ardennes. Scared, overrun, holding here, fleeing there, massacred here, revenging there. That Sherman that made the Raggedy 106th cheer? It was being driven by the SS. Fuckers. Motherfucking SS. They opened fire on those Lost Boys in the woods, and all hope fled. And you know what those boys were doing there in that fucking dark snowy wood?

Saving our fucking asses from Dick Cheney, the Prequel, that’s what. I love those fucking Lost Boys out there behind St. Vith. I’m rooting for them. They lose everytime, and they all die, but I root for them anyway, because of all fights, that was the fucking Excellent Fight. Fucking Sepp Dietrich’s got Tiger Tanks, and he’s shoving them right down your throat, and you got nothing but a fucking M-1 Garand, but you fucking hold your ground because FUCK THE NAZIS, and that’s how the world is saved, holding back the 6th Panzers for just one more fucking hour, so that George MotherFucking Lunatic Genius Patton can wheel six divisions around and kick their ass all the way back to Deutschland.

Kinda like what we’re going to have to do with the Motherfucking Corporate 1% Dickhead Hoarder Military-Industrial-Complex-Walmart/Halliburton Neo-Nazis. Watch out, fucking Paul fucking Evil Ryan, reincarnated Hippie Pattons are wheeling around to sweep your incompetent primate buttocks all the way to Greedhead Valhalla. It's going to happen. Here comes your Nuremberg, Rand Paul. And fuck you very much for trying.

'Nuts', 1%. Fuck off and pass into history like the Robber Barons you are. We're coming.

[KansDem]

1. Kick 'n Rec for a very well-thought-out essay.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. The Bulge does not Fuck.

It would be a good essay if a little more thought were put into it. Resort to obscenity does not cover up lack of thought applied to expression.

[SharonAnn]

23. "Fired up! Ready to go!"

[MannyGoldstein]

2. "reincarnated Hippie Pattons"

Love it! Exactly!

(Hopefully we found our reincarnated Harvard-Law-School-Professor Ike.)

My uncle was in the Battle of the Bulge. Would never speak about it, I think it affected him profoundly. War is Hell, if sometimes an unavoidable Hell.

[Dustlawyer]

9. Until a few years ago, I would present mesothelioma victims for their depositions.

Many of these guys were exposed to asbestos in the military. Earlier in my career it was common to have these WWII vets. I have met many men from the Battle of the Bulge, Iwo Jima, Normandy, and others. Most did not want to talk about it but had to. I have seen a room full of attorneys forget why they were there they had become so fascinated by the stories. I met many heroes who would not have considered themselves heroes. They just did what they thought they had to do. Love those old guys, may they R.I.P.!

[Sancho]

11. and then there was Rosie the riveter...

My grandmother helped to build Liberty Ships in Brunswick, GA during WWII. They installed asbestos and painted with lead paint. She died at 58 from cancer and related causes because of exposure to those materials in the shipyard. The MD's were clear that was the cause, but my grandparents just considered it their fate and obligation to doing their part. They never even thought about suing the government or anyone owing them anything. At the time, they simply didn't realize the risk.

In the early 60's, I remember my grandmother was proud to do her part, and she said so often.

[Dustlawyer]

13. The Big Asbestos companies, John's Manville, Owens-Corning, Ownes Illinois... all decided

at their annual National Safety Council meetings, to do a study to find out why their workers were coming down with these various lung diseases and having the nerve to file workers compensation claims (no one filed them or they would be black balled, but they filed them if they knew they were never going to work again anyway). They discovered that asbestos did cause fatal illnesses and then covered it up for as long as they could (several decades). When the suits started in earnest they got Congress to create a special bankruptcy just for them where they could create a trust for the victims (always underfunded) and emerge free of liability from these victims. Now they make it seem like it was all greedy trial lawyers that caused the problem (See U.S. Chamber of Commerce)!

[Boomerproud]

3. My mother's first cousin died 12/31/44 and I believe it was in the Battle of the Bulge.

RIP Albert Kline, and all of his brave brothers in arms.

[Are_grits_groceries]

4. My Daddy fought in the Battle of the Bulge. nt

[Berlum]

5. "Dickie 'Five-Military-Deferments' Cheney, the Prequel"

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?w=267&h=400

[kairos12]

20. As an Airborne Ranger infantry officer my contempt for Cheney Chickenhawks and his fight...

Last edited Sun Dec 15, 2013, 04:48 PM - Edit history (1)

to the last drop of other people's blood knows no limits. He is contemptible Tin Man with a stolen heart.

[Berlum]

21. Republicons consistently rally around chickenhawks

A pronounced pattern which has always spoken volumes about them and their so-called 'values'...

[Cooley Hurd]

6. My Dad fought in the Battle of the Bulge - 551st AAA AW Bn.

He was the lead for a 40mm Bofors gun crew. Took down a Messerschmitt or two...

[Fuddnik]

7. Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Laelth]

8. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[maindawg]

10. awsome

you fucking rock!

[flying rabbit]

12. Righteous fucking rant!

Bravo!

[LibertyLover]

14. Excellent!

I loved your characterization of both Montgomery and Patton. So true. Enjoy the rest of your reading. I think I'm going to check this history out.

[NBachers]

15. Rally the troops! Onward, Upward, and Furthur!

[tabasco]

17. The fight around Rocherath and Krinkelt in Belgium is especially inspiring

The area of the German main effort, where they never broke through.

The fight in that area included a scout platoon that held off an entire Panzergrenadier regiment for the better part of a day. In 1988, you could still go to the woodline in Belgium, where they fought, and locate fighting positions.

Let's not forget the guys who held the line, as we rightly glorify the guys who squashed the breakthrough.

[ewagner]

18. Pretty much describes....

how many of us felt during the 8 horrible years of the Bush administration...

watching our folks get overpowered by wave after wave of right-wing propaganda ...watching our friends and neighbors "drink the koolaid" and switch sides out of a combination of faux patriotism, lust for revenge and downright fear that there was a terrorist behind every tree.

NUTS, 1%....we'll fight on

[Nevernose]

19. Blood and Guts Patton: his guts, our blood.

That was literally all my grandfather would say about the man. I don't have words for the venom with which he said the name "Patton."

He was a captain in charge of a company of light tanks, came home from the Battle of the Bulge with a fistful of medals (pick a color, any color), and was psychologically scarred over that shit for the next fifty years.

We're going to France this summer and I'm planning a day trip to Tuddern, a German town near Maastricht. They made him the honorary burgermeister (we've still got the comemerative Nazi flag they gave him) and I believe was where he was when my father was born.

[paleotn]

22. 69th anniversary this year.

The Nazis last gasp in the west. I still don't think Patton's left turn receives the level of fame it deserves. With significant German forces in his front, conventional wisdom would say he was nuts. Gutsy, bold and absolutely remarkable that he pulled it off.

Dad didn't talk too much in detail about the Bulge, other than he'd never been that cold in his life and mentioned a few place names in Belgium like Stavelot and Malmady. He was part of a mobile radar unit that was ordered to leave their equipment in the rear, or at least what they thought was the rear, and went into front line action, for the first time for many of his guys. They were in near constant fighting without relief from Dec. 19 until Jan. 10th. As for the SS, more than 50 years later he still hated those guys. He said many where taken prisoner, but some were just shot on sight. Late in the war, they ran into a couple of snipers hold up in a barn outside Cologne, Germany. They surrounded the barn and several times ordered them to give up. No response other than shooting. So they lit the barn on fire and shot the two Germans as they finally ran out. They were SS. Awful, terrible times.

[Generic Other]

24. My father was one of the sons of Bitchie

He carried a card proclaiming his membership for years. He spent some cold nights in foxholes. Knitted my brother a pair of booties. Earned a bronze star for saving an 18 year old kid. Carried him ten miles through the woods. I found a letter from the kid thanking my dad after the war.

Dad had a grenade pinned in his coat and swore he wouldn't be taken prisoner.

[Adam-Bomb]

25. A REALLY good book on the Ardennes counteroffensive..

is MacDonald's "A Time for Trumpets." He was there, but the book isn't about him
(he was made famous for his book "Company Commander&quot .

A very factual, interesting and gripping read. The stubbornness and bravery shown by
both the veteran and the electric green GI's is a testament to "The Greatest Generation."

A solid 10/10 for your rant, OP.

[Hangingon]

26. Excellent read!

[neverforget]

34. I was going to post the same thing. "A Time for Trumpets" is an excellent book

about the Battle of the Bulge. It's one of the few books I want to read again.

[onethatcares]

27. this is why the chickenhawks

have waited for the "greatest generation" to die off before starting their bullshit.

Our fathers knew what it was like to fight, for food, for a job and for the country, and now they are getting

the things they fought for kicked to the curb.

It wasn't only the Battle of the Bulge, it was the Batann Death March, the storming of IwoJima and countless other battles
that made our fathers what they were. Most of them didn't parade around bragging about what they did. They lived quietly
with those horrors.

My dad was a radio operator on a PBY in the south pacific, didn't talk to me about the war at all aside from the stupid things the
navy pulled on the army and vice versa. My brother seems to think he was in on the rescue of the survivors of the USS Enterprise
and is doing research as I type this.

[LiberalElite]

28. My uncle was a paratrooper

in the Battle of the Bulge. Came home, got married, joined the NYFD, then dropped out of society and became an itinerant alcoholic dishwasher.

[Scuba]

29. I fucking love this post.

[Sirveri]

30. What if that battle never happened?

I was reading B.H. Liddel Hart recently, he made an interesting point, where the allied forces chose to go east towards Alsace Lorraine instead of through Luxemborg and into the rhineland, the industrial heart of the German war machine. Even though once they made their breakthrough there was nothing behind the line to stop them from taking it, and doing so could have theoretically ended the war a year earlier and prevented all the bloodiest (for the USA in Europe) battles of the war.

[eShirl]

32. interesting

[eShirl]

31. My uncle was in that, he drove an ammunition truck.

He's still going strong now in his 90s.

[malthaussen]

33. The Battle of Parker's Crossroads.

The 7th armored division maintains a nice site about the involvement of their troops in the battle of Baraque de Fraiture, or Parker's Crossroads, which involved the 589th FAB of the 106th division, commanded by Major Arthur Parker. It includes an eyewitness account by one 1st Lt Arthur A. Olsen of D Troop, 87th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, linked here: http://www.7tharmddiv.org/baraque-87ci.htm

I like this report because it confirms that armored cavalry troopers did call their Jeeps "peeps," which I had read in a Bulge account some 40-odd years ago but had never seen confirmed. The defense of the crossroads, which was ultimately overrun by the Germans, was critical in holding open the "Fortified Goose Egg" and the N-S road to Liege. I love AARs. They may not always be completely accurate or take in the Big Picture, but it is always gripping to hear the story from somebody who was actually there.

"Though each and every man of this unit knew the fullness of this suicide mission,
credit must be given to the fullest extent to the O's and EM for
thier [sic] loyalty to dy in this action as they fully knew that nothing but death awaited them."
-- D/87 Morning Report 23 December 1944

-- Mal