By Dan Balkin
There is a side door on HoliMont’s chalet near our flagship Exhibition high speed chairlift. As one walks into the small entrance foyer, there are several framed photographs on the wall. The man to the bottom left in the photos is Ed Doyle, a long standing HoliMont member who joined our Snowsports team when he was in his late 50s. Ed is now in the presence of God, but even well into his 80s, Ed had a house in Eville that was frequented by his many friends. Former HoliMont instructor Clark Duffin and I were frequent guests at Ed’s house. One night, over refreshments, our conversation pivoted to Ed’s military service in WWII. As anyone knows, combat veterans have seen things that the rest of us cannot imagine – and out of respect for their heroic fallen comrades – they rarely or never talk about what they experienced. But Ed, who was both a kindhearted and a successful businessman back in Cleveland, was now well into his 80s and Clark and I were noticing the early signs of dementia. This is only brought up, because Ed told us a story that had long been simmering in his memory but that he would never have revealed before the changes were affecting his mind. Suddenly, he told us a story about The Battle of The Bulge. This was the final German counteroffensive in the West after the Allies (including our great Canadian friends) had landed in France on D-Day in 1944. Ed’s commanding officer told him to crawl toward a German foxhole where there was a machine gun nest and lob a hand grenade into it. Ed admitted he was terrified, but the battle was raging, and an order was an order. Ed told us, under fire, he managed to toss the grenade at the target. Still in a crawl, Ed approached the smoldering foxhole, peered in, and saw four dead German soldiers. Suddenly, a lone tear trickled down his cheek. Ed then said to us “They were four young guys just like me, and now they were dead.” Clark and I stared into our drinks, realizing that Ed had lived with this traumatic event for many years but had not previously articulated how the horror of war never leaves one’s memory.
WWII veteran shared insights on war and human
decency.
Earlier in my life, in the 1980s, I used to go ski touring (climbing up / skiing down) in the Alps with a man named Paul who had been a German soldier in WWII. He told me that when the Nazis overran his homeland of Austria, he and one other boy in his town refused to join the Hitler Youth. After the war, the other boy became a Catholic priest. Paul? He was very intelligent and in his post-war life became an engineer. Over a beer at après ski, he told me that during the war, he was sent to an officers training school for six months. He then paused, and his eyes glistened over as he recounted that during the time he was at officers’ school, many of his hometown friends serving in the enlisted ranks perished on the Russian front. After graduating from officers training, Paul was stationed on WWIIs southern front, fighting in Italy. He said the Nazis told German soldiers that if they surrendered, their entire family would be sent to a concentration camp. This never happened, but it was a Nazi scare tactic to try to get their soldiers to fight to the last breath. Paul then said that one day his unit were engaged in a fierce firefight with New Zealand troops (another of our valiant allies). The Germans were eventually surrounded, ran out of ammo, and surrendered; Paul said it was the happiest day of his life. He hated the Nazis and all they represented and was thrilled, that at least for him, the war was over.
We learn many lessons in life, but these two stories about WWII told by Ed and Paul, two ski friends of mine, who lived an ocean apart and wore opposing uniforms, gave me cause for reflection. Pacifism? No. The Nazis needed to be stopped – both men agreed. One realizes that good people and human decency are not bound by a national border.