Check this out. Rocky and I have our name in lights on the same page. Both of us joined the Anzio Beachhead Veterans Association. YEAH!!!

http://www.anziobeachheadveteransofwwii.com

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I'm proud to feature our VERY FIRST WOMAN on our site, a dear friend of mine, Gretchen Hovis.

I met Gretchen and her pal "Mac" through my mother-in-law about a dozen or so years ago. I used to go to their house and help them with their computer.

Gretch and Mac are extraordinary ladies, and have many hobbies and interests (including computers), and are very active and a lot of fun. Let's just say that a lot of 40 year-olds couldn't compete!

When I moved from the Detroit area, we kept in contact through cards and email, but it wasn't until a couple of months ago that I found out while talking about my dad and our site, that Gretch was overseas with the 50th General Hospital in France. Of course I was excited to hear about her experiences, so she promised me that she would send some stuff my way. Sure enough, I received a package yesterday, containing a booklet she had put together, complete with photographs.

I was eager to get the page on web site, so spent a good part of my day working to get this accomplished. I hope you will enjoy reading it.

As I said, it's great to have our FIRST WOMAN FEATURED. A very warm welcome Gretch! You are even more extraordinary than I thought!

http://www.6thcorpscombatengineers.com/Gre...etchenHovis.htm

I went shooting with one of my sons today (his first time shooting the M1 Rifle ) and started to wonder about how often weapons were cleaned.

I know there are probably a ton of variables concerned, but how often did you guys clean your weapons? Was it a quick run through of a patch, or did you break it down and clean it whenever you had the chance?

Received the following letters from John McAuliffe of the 87th Inf Div, and a follow up letter from our mutual friend Gilbert Stevenot.

Here are John's words:

[This message could only come from a soldier in the Weremacht and not indoctrinated in the SS .....considering that the SS could not possibly hold such beliefs...Considering how they treated and massacred Belgian and Luxembourg civilians etc..

"Mac"

Subject: German Officer's Message

"Let the world never live through such a Christmas night again!

Is there something more cruel than to die fighting, far from his children,

his wife and his mother ?

To take away a son from his mother, a husband from his wife, a father from

his children is not an honorable act by a human being. Life can only be

given and accepted by people who love and respect one another. Hopefully

universal fraternity will be brought into existance from this scene of ruins,

blood and death".

The above was found by a Belgian school teacher on his classroom blackboard near Bastogne written in German by a German Officer after the Battle of the Ardennes.

Here are Steve's words:

Dear John,

I have seen the blackbord, on which those wonderfully written thoughts were written, with his heart, of this unknown german officer. and if we face the facts at the situation realistically, we can think long about ! That german officer was a warm-hearted man, who had a sound education, in the heat of the battle. His handwrittting was surely the one of a teacher, and it was a Christmas message for all the belligerents.For sure he was not a SS. I have always associated this message to the one of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the wise commander-in-chief of the allied forces, who said, " I hate war, as only a soldier could have lived it, but also to have lived its brutality, its futility, and its stupidity"

I have received two nice letters, this last days. I will meet, if I remain in good health, and not repeat my misfortune with you, dear John. I will meet two good friends General Albin Irzyk, who was the first to meet General Mc Auliffe, at the gates of Bastogne, just before the encirclement, but had to retreat on Patton's orders, and his friend General James Leach.They are coming from France, from Singling where they have both engaged a big battle, to dedicate a monument. They will be in Bastogne the 9th december,and perhaps the 10th, in my town Rochefort. James is a wonderful friend , he came twice in my town for private visit, and did not know that one of them was official, and so he became a freeman of the City. One more task for me, I will have to arrange a reception in Bastogne and perhaps one more in Rochefort.

I am proud of what I have done in the past years and still waiting for hottest future actions.I am proud to have met so much dear friends, on my way, friends like you, without distinction of ranks. Just the same way than you. You were in all the ceremonies just a pivate. No more no less. Thanks again for your last kind attention.To be, and remain a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge means a lot for me John.We live with our memories.

Till soon John, and best regards.

I am in the PLANNING stages for a "sister" site to VI Corps Combat Engineers. It would have the same exact flavor of the main site because I would use the templates (colors, fonts, etc.), but its focus would be for ALL WWII engineers.

If you look at the main site you will see that it is set up to focus on the 36th, 39th, 540th and 1108th, with photos and history pages for each of them. What I would like to do with future site, is to take all the info I have on the forum for the other engineering units, and create a page for each of the units.

So in other words if you visited the future site, it would have a home page regarding WWII Engineers and each subsequent page would feature the history of the various units. I would basically copy all the info that I have on the units that are now on the forum. This would make it lot easier for people doing searches on the Internet. They wouldn't have to search through the forum topics to find what they are looking for.

Anyway, it's something for the future, but I already purchased a domain name for it. www.ww2engineers.com. Don't try and ACTUALLY GO THERE RIGHT NOW, because there is NO SITE yet. I just have the name reserved.