Descendants Corner
by
Marcia Balmut Ward
Please permit me to share an article
presented in my high school class last week…….
“WHAT
IS AN AMERICAN?….. You probably
missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report
that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward
to anyone who killed an American – any American. So, an Australian dentist
wrote the following to let everyone know what an American is, so they would
know when they found one…
An American is English, or French, or
Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may,
also, be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian,
Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan. An American may, also, be
a Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, or one of the many other
tribes known as Native Americans.
An American is Christian, or he or she could
be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim.
In fact, there are more Muslims in America
than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to
worship as each of them chooses.
An American is also free to believe in no
religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, nor to
armed thugs claiming to speak for the government or for God.
An American is from the most prosperous land
in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the
Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each
man and woman to the pursuit of Happiness.
An American is generous. Americans have
helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need.
When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came
with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of
the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation
to the poor in Afghanistan.
Americans welcome the best – the best
products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes.
But they also welcome the least. One
national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty, welcomes “your tired,
your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest
tossed”. These in fact are the people who built America. Some of them were
working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, earning a better
life for their families. I’ve been told that the World Trade Center victims
were from at least 30 other countries and cultures with first languages
other than English – including those countries of the 9/11 terrorists.
So you can try to kill an American if you
must. Hitler tried. So did General Tojo, Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and every
bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world. But, doing so would be
futile because Americans are not a particular people from a particular
place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who
holds to the spirit, everywhere, is an American.”
And so on that note…I wish to begin sharing
words once again from Catherine Bishop (retired), USAF widow of Major
Halford R. Bishop (USAF – fighter pilot), daughter of
Tsgt. Francis G.
O’Connell, 390th
Bomb Group, 570th
Bomb Squadron.
Christmas
Memories from the Past…..
“While searching the WWII records of
my father who was a prisoner at Stalag Luft IV during the Christmas of 1944,
I located some articles written by the men who defended this country, our
freedom and democracy. Here is one of them written by Pilot officer Robert
L. Masters (Canada)…
HOW WE COOKED IN KRIEGIE
CAMP..
You want to know how we cooked when we were
guests of the Third Reich. Well, I will tell you. A good cook can turn out
a fine dinner even in a kriegie camp, especially if he is a wizard at
improvising. We had a combine of 20 men, and we pooled our resources.
Monty was head man and chef, and the rest of us had jobs carrying water,
sweeping floors. We used a stove with tin can modifications.
Of course, we pooled the food stuffs in
our Red Cross Christmas parcels, and for a long time before Christmas Monty
was busy baking cakes. He planned to have 20 individual cakes and one large
communal one. Each Red Cross Christmas parcel contained a 12 ounce can of
turkey, one plum pudding, six ounces of stewed cherries, eight ounces of
candy, eight ounces of cheese, some honey and other Christmas sweets such as
dates and nuts. To augment the supplies, we swiped a few carrots for the
bouillon cube consommé and bought onions from the guards, in exchange for
cigarettes, also enough rye flour to help a bit in the baking.
For some time he had been saving prune
stones; he roasted the kernels, ground them to powder with a stone, and
mixed the powder with klim, sugar, and margarine. Honestly, you couldn’t
tell the result from marzipan. He spread a thick layer of this marzipan over
his cake, and over that he put half an inch of D bar icing. D bars are
emergency chocolate rations, with calcium and other concentrated values.
The individual cakes were made by a
different method. Monty crumbled and dried the soft part of the Deutsch rye
bread…not the crusts, they taste horrible…then mixed in margarine, raisins,
chips of prunes, apricots, and a little carrot and flavored with roasted
prune kernels and a touch of cinnamon. To make them rise he used soda
bicarbonate tablets racketeered from the medical stores.
These cakes he baked in klim tins, by
placing three tins on the stone and inverting a pail over them. When they
were baked, he iced them with chocolate, and decorated them with pink and
white icing squeezed through a tube improvised from a klim tin.
In addition to the Red Cross puddings, Monty
made one of Deutsch bread with prunes, raisins, and carrots. He filled a
bowl, tied it in a cloth, put a stick through the knot, and suspended it in
a pail full of boiling water for five hours. He invented a sauce of turnip
jam, which is bright red klim and sugar heated together.
An hour before dinner Monty turned us out of
the room while he set the tables. When we came in the tables were decorated
with red and white crepe paper. At every man’s place was a decorated cake, a
new Red Cross facecloth – each a different color – and a place card. An
American had drawn the cards, with a design of bells, and the initials or
every service represented in the combine: RCAF, RAF, RNZAF, RAAF, USAAF,
Paratroops. We had to eat out of our kriegie bowls and wash them between
courses, but it wasn’t much trouble because the cooks had a good supply of
hot water for that purpose. Here’s the menu: Consomme turkey with potato
chips seasoned with onion, plum pudding with klim bash sauce, stewed
cherries, Christmas cake, nuts, candy, crackers, cheese, tea and coffee.
The Swiss YMCA had sent mild fireworks which went up with …awhoosh….and
showered down flags and hats and tinsel.
Two Abwier “goons”, as we kriegies called
the guard, came in and looked around…”Das ist schon!” one of them said
quietly to the other.
We asked them about their celebration. They
told us they each had a sausage about a yard long and a loaf of bread. They
said they put the sausages round their necks and danced around and had a
fine time.
After dinner we had an orchestra consisting
of a piano, accordion, a saxophone, and a clarinet. We sang and “hung the
washing on the Siegfried Line” so often that it was a wonder the guards
didn’t come in and shut us down.
We were permitted to stay out in the
compound, if we wished, until one o’clock, instead of coming in before
sundown as usual. The guards were posted thick around the lager as an extra
precaution. We went visiting, and kept open house ourselves. We set out
biscuits with jam, cheese, honey, or a special confection, pineapple jam
mixed with cocoa, which has a unique flavor, really delicious.
As long as I live I’ll never forget that
Christmas dinner in a kriegie camp. I’ll remember the 19 other fellows in
our combine, and Monty’s wizardry with an improvised range. I do not think
one of us will ever forget the Christmas parcels from the Red Cross.”
….This too is what an American is…brave,
industrious, courageous, hopeful, clever….a buddy to those who were living a
hell that only they could describe!
Heroes…every one of them. As Mrs. Bishop
shared, “My father never talked much about the war. We knew he had been shot
down and a POW for over a year. Once at Christmas I went into Arlington
National Cemetery and had Dad’s favorite after dinner coffee with him…coffee
laced with Kahlua. There were a lot of other families there visiting on
Christmas afternoon too…Miss you, Dad!”
Words many of us could pen….Merry
Christmas…Happy New Year 2005!
Never will we ever
forget!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
