Today is Friday, December 23rd, 2005; Karen's Korner #700
Not only is this an opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! It is also an opportunity to celebrate the 700th Karen's Korner. Who would have thought it, when I started! And if I would have planned backwards, would I have figured it right to have this milestone hit on Christmas Eve??
So thanks for the memories and for sticking with me all/some of the Karen's Korners to date! Remember that back topics, writings, etc. can be found by going to the web site: www.karens-korner.com and typing in a word or two and you can find back issues (Christmas, Isaiah, birds, or whatever), and any Karen's Korners with those topics will come back up.
So Merry Christmas from the Welds to each of you!!
.As we come to Christmas Eve, I think back to a couple of stories my dad used to retell quite often about his days in Germany, as a part of the U.S. Army and the efforts of World War II. He was in a medical division, helping to aid wounded soldiers.
He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's plan to divide the Allied Forces in a last attempt to win the war. It was nearing Christmas and the troops would move as if in a dance; sometimes advancing, other times retreating.
More than once I heard him talk about Christmas Eve of 1944. They awoke to a lot of new fallen snow. Their temporary home of tents had footprints all around them. And the boots were not from any Allied soldiers.
"The tracks were made by the Germans and the Axis troops," he would say. "I have no idea why we weren't captured!"
Christmas gift #1 - December 1944!
Another story he would tell quite frequently was later on in the war.
It became apparent to both sides that Germany and their allies would not win the war, but their leaders had not surrendered, so the battles continued.
"We had German nurses who would come and work with us all day," my dad would tell, "and then we would give them all kinds of supplies and medicines to take back to their soldiers. They had nothing left to care for their people with. We were all just soldiers with wounded people that needed care. They had what we needed - more nurses; we had what they needed - more supplies."
As we are once again in a conflict in Iraq, we need to remember that even in war, sometimes the best comes out in people.
Christmas gift #2 - memories carred forward to December 2005!
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