American Generosity

It was a rugged trip coming back. So the second trip, I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell that or not, that we, this Green fellow and I from Toronto decided we’re not going back on that truck. We’ll hitchhike back. An officer, American and his driver in their jeep, so they see two Canadians, “Where are you fellas coming from and where are you going? ” and everything. So we told him what we had to do. We had to be in Lunenburg, tomorrow. So he said, “You come with us.” And the place was Eger, it’s a beautiful, a summer resort place. “We have a, we’re opening a new club tonight, so you come and we’ll put you on the mail truck in the morning. You’ll get right in there.” Okay, we left. So when we got there, he sent his Sergeant with us, get us washed up and everything. He said, “Come back, I want to see you,” and he gave us books of tickets for drinks. And so here I was looking around, white sheets on the beds. I said, “I was in this army they’ll never get me out of it.” And they had girl waitress. If they spoke English, they had it marked on this. So that was Patton’s troops, you know. “Our blood and Patton’s guts” they used to say. So here we never used one of our tickets, all the Americans, we were the only two Canadians, buying us drinks and whatever, you know. So the next morning they gave us a whole pile of K-rations to put in our tunics and things, you know, and away we went and we got to Lunenburg.