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| 7/28/2010 10:51:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Richard Wehrs, former WWII infantryman, considers his Purple Heart the most important item from his time of service in the Army. He also kept the piece of shrapnel from his leg leg, and various medals and pins of rank. |
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| WWII veteran Richard Wehrs in New York City, right before he was shipped overseas with the Army. |
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Wehrs reflects on World War II service
Meaghan Downs
Reporter
His purple heart is Richard Wehrs' most important possession from World War II, awarded to him after he was wounded in action serving as an Army infantryman.
"You had to earn that, you had to give blood for that," he said.
He has other souvenirs. The piece of shrapnel extracted from his left knee lays in a satin box. Scars pucker in his left shoulder and leg.
And he's gathered all of his letters sent to his family and high school sweetheart from the beginning of his basic training through his injury in Luxembourg.
After retirement, Wehrs, 87, decided to transcribe all of the old letters, add commentary and bind them, titling the book "Letters sent from the States."
"The letters aren't an autobiography or anything, they're letters I just sent home," he said.
Then
A farmer's son from Milford, Wehrs enlisted in 1942 at age 18. He had been attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for agriculture, and was told if he signed with the reserves, he'd be allowed to continue his studies. That quickly changed. Wehrs said he wasn't angry he had to report for duty.
"You were going to go one way or the other; everyone went," he said.
After travelling across the U.S. from base to base for basic training, Wehrs found himself overseas, stationed in Germany, Luxembourg and France. The letter excerpts Wehrs typed speak of his impressions of the land and the people.
"The country is really beautiful. All the trees are changing color from a light frost...The people in all these little towns were starting to repair them," Wehrs wrote while in France in October 1944. "The smaller towns are destroyed more by artillery fire than the larger ones. The people though are always asking for cigarettes. I think they would even if someone was shooting at them,"
The language barrier, Wehrs said, was often challenging. He recalled he used a kind of sign language, flapping his arms to barter for chickens. German and French vendors, in turn, hopped up and down, trying to sell the many rabbits they bred for food. Sometimes, however, his farming experience paid off. Wehrs would grab a cow wandering the countryside and have fresh milk.
"The boys from New York, they'd tried to get some, but they never had much luck," he said.
That was one thing Wehrs missed the most-eating. Especially his mother's mincemeat pie.
"When we didn't have anything else to do, we'd tell each other how good of cooks our mothers were," he said.
Much of life in Army involved waiting for things to happen, Wehrs said. Not that he minded waiting.
"The longer you waited, the less time you'd have to be on the front," he said. "Army was 95 percent of the time you were sitting, waiting for something to happen."
Wehrs was made a buck sergerant in 1944, replacing a wounded squad leader. As a replacement, Wehrs said it was hard to bond with the other men.
"I was afraid to make friends because they didn't last very long," he said.
Wehrs kept in touch with a couple of men from basic training. He reconnected with friend Alfred Miossi a few years ago, and occasionally corresponds via e-mail.
Wehrs said he didn't get as homesick as others, but did miss the people he left behind. After being wounded by a German mortar shell that hit a cemetary fence, Wehs was sent back to the States to receive medical care. It took him almost 21 days to get home, passing through Luxembourg City, England, New York and Walla Walla, Wash. "When I got into the New York pier, I kissed the ground," he said.
After being officially medically discharged from the Army, Wehrs hitched a ride on an airplane to the Lincoln base, where he met his family and fiancee Ruth. They were married a week later, on June 1, 1945, though Wehrs said he wished it was sooner.
"I told my future mother-in-law that when I got off the plane, I wanted the preacher to be there," Wehrs said.
Now
It was the Civil War that seemed like ancient history to young Wehrs, born 65 years after the South surrendered. Wehrs still has an old daguerreotype of his great-grandfather, who served for Pennsylvania.
Now, 65 years after WWII, Wehrs understands how talking about the experiences he's lived through seems like sounds like another language.
"You can't tell anybody what it feels like when an '88's coming atcha," he said.
Wehrs pulled out tepia tinted pictures of his days in the service, explaining when and where they were taken. As one of the last remaining WWII veterans, Wehrs knows not many others still remember and share his experience.
"The 'last of the mohicans,' or something like that?" he said with a smile.
It's an experience, Wehrs said, he wouldn't trade, "but you wouldn't want to do it again for a million dollars."
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