It's Saturday afternoon and a perfect day for a wedding in downtown Bastogne, Belgium. We happened upon this wedding while exploring the town, which was so bravely and effectively defended by the 101st Airborne and others during the Battle of the Bulge. There's plenty of old architecture here, much of it from before Christmas of 1944 when the Germans surrounded this key town with "seven roads in and seven roads out." Eisenhower chose the 101st to dig in and that they did until armored elements eventually joined them. They were not rescued, veterans will tell you. No need for that.Today we entered the historic 101st headquarters building at the secure Belgian Military Barracks where the Commander, Gen. McAuliffe, when asked to surrender sent back the famous message "Nuts!" which had to be translated to the German Command as "Go To Hell."
We visited an armor museum nearby, saw tons of tanks and memorabilia. Tomorrow we'll see where the boys of Easy Company dug in to the Ardennes forest during the coldest winter locals had seen for many years.
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| Civilians were trapped in their basements for many days during the battle at Bastogne. This gentleman could have been a young boy at that time, he looks to be the right age. We have no idea if he was or who he is, but we like to think he carries a memory of those times. We could have asked, but we don't speak French, Dutch or German, the three languages used here. |
