September 18th, 1944: the 506th Airborne Division Easy Company liberates my city Eindhoven from the German terror that has been there for almost 5 years. The Easy Company got global fame a few years back when Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks together made the (beautiful) tv show 'Band of Brothers'.
Yesterday I had the luck to meet two of the men who where there during all the battles and were lucky to survive the "hell" as they like to call it. Yesterday I met Bill Guarnere and Babe Heffron... Both of them fought with Easy Company all the way through Normandy, Market Garden, Bastogne and all the way up the the Eagles Nest in Berchtesgarden.
Bill Guarnere tragically got his leg blown of in Bastogne but as he said himself: "it was worth every second of pain if I say the joy of today's people". We had a five minute conversation about who grateful I am and respect I have for them. I said they are heroes but they denied it. "The real heroes are the guys that have lost their lives, although I think they immediatly do it again if they see what they have reached." (Babe Heffron).
I am very happy to have met both men in real-life and it hasn't changed my image about them at all. They are both very kind men who deserve all the respect. Those men have seen death, hate and anger in it's purest and hardest form. This may never be forgoten...
(I was only able to take this worthless picture as both men passed in a Jeep)
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Originally Posted by baddabang
