One of the few items my father brought home from the war in Europe was a nazi campaign flag. In the white field, surrounding the swastika, were written the names and hometowns of ten men.

The names on the flag are: Vernon Bloomer; Veryle Brown; William Brown; John Burns; James Cagle; Jose Angel Ruiz; William Dietz; Stewart Srrinkle; James Tuttle; Joseph M. Wells.

I met one of the men, when I was very young. He told how my father earned a Bronze Star. He was, James Tuttle, a much admired and well-respected, Platoon Sergeant, who has since passed away. I have located three of the other men named on the flag, the surviving son of one of them, and the widow of another.

My father passed away in 1979. In 1989, I picked up a book about the Battle of the Bulge. It raised many questions that I could not find the answers to because my father's papers were lost in the Records Center fire of 1974.

I reached out to the men on the flag for help-- for a period of time in my father's life these men were as close as any family he had. They depended on each other for their survival. The men came through, again. They have provided me with information, documents, photographs, and a sense of what my father only hinted at, concerning the war. For some it has taken these fifty plus years to open up and let the rest of us hear some of what they experienced. I am sharing what they have given me in an attempt to honor them, in a small way, and keep the memory alive.