Barry J. Veden

My Heroes: the men of Northern Indiana Chapter Xxx Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge Barry J. Veden

The year was 1944 and America was at war. The Allies had landed in Normandy on June 6 and had steadily pushed the German armies out of France toward the Fatherland. On December 16, 1944, approximately 600,000 German soldiers launched, what they called, the Ardennes Offensive. The enemy attacked the American forces along the Siegfried Line where Belgium and the tiny Grand Duchy of Luxembourg border on Germany. Before the advance was halted ten days later, a bulge created in the American lines by the more than half million Nazi soldiers would give birth to the term, the Battle of the Bulge. Officially ending on January 25, 1945, the Battle of the Bulge would claim more than 80,000 American casualties - young soldiers killed, wounded or captured - all in 41 days. Now, approximately 60 years after the battle began, 35 northern Indiana soldiers who took part in the Battle of the Bulge relive their experiences as they remember it now. In one interview, a veteran says, "I can still see the faces of the men I killed in combat. I often wonder what they would have done with their lives had they lived." Another says that he has memories that haunt him to this day, and then he relates one such incident. Return with the author to the 1940s as these aged veterans reminisce about the Battle of the Bulge and discuss how those cold, dark days in Europe helped shape the remainder of their lives.