Barry, this hit home. My Admin Asst when I was the Provost Marshal in Stuttgart in the early 1970's was a great guy by the name of Hermann Boepple (... or Herman the German as the MP's referred to him.).
Herman had been a member of the German Afrika Corps in WWII, was captured in Tunis and interred in the states … initially at a canning factory in Texas where they made C-Rations for the troops. Later, in 1944, he was transferred to farm work in Idaho.
The farmer for whom he worked remained friends with Herman well into the 1980’s when Hermann passed away. At time of his death, Hermann had more than 35 years of service with the US Army.
As an aside, during the war the German prisoners working in the canning factory used to catch mice and put them in the C-Rations. I always enjoyed that story but would’ve been pissed if I had ever opened a C-Ration to find a decomposed mouse inside.
Just a reminder that soldiers are soldiers no matter which uniform they wear …
