Two Veterans Share Their Experiences

And Recall what Veterans Day is all About

By Casey Dainsberg (Story #6)

The waitress brought a plate full of food and set it down in front of Retired IBM Employee and Veteran, Paul Nast. Picking up his fork, he started poking at the eggs on his plate—prepared over easy. It brings a smile of recognition to his face as he hearkens back to his Army days. “I never liked my eggs done this way,” he recounts, “This is the way they used to serve our eggs in the army.” Picking up the salt and pepper shakers pushed to the far end of the booth, he gives the runny eggs a healthy dose of each and continued, “This is how I learned to eat them. I just had to make sure there was some egg with the salt and pepper.”

It wasn’t until the 1950’s that Veterans Day got the name it is referred to as today. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in the year 1918, World War I ended. According to a web article about Veterans Day on History.com, the day was first called Armistice Day. However, it was renamed Veterans Day in 1954. Since that transition took place, the date no longer just represents the end of World War I. Veterans Day remembers the men and women who have served, and are honorably serving in the United States Military.

Nast is one of many Veterans who served during World War II. As a young man during the 1940’s, his experiences in the army shaped his future in things such as education, and vocation. It also established habits that would stick with him throughout the years of his life, such as a strong coffee habit and, how he ate his eggs.



Paul Nast, now retired enjoys fishing and spending time
with Friends and Family.
(Photo Submitted)



 Nast enlisted at eighteen years old and was assigned with the 445^th Ordnance Company Heavy Automotive Maintenance CO. (H.A.M. Co.) After Boot Camp he attended Track and Wheel Vehicle Electronics School. “I graduated with honor; the top student they ever had in the class.” He was sent overseas in November of 1944 where his first stop was in Marseilles, France. They stayed there for about a month while his Company waited for their gear, trucks, and equipment to catch up with them. During that time his company slept in pup-tents. A blanket and sleeping mattress (which also served a secondary purpose as a body bag) were all they had to separate them from the cold ground. Nast said he would trade cigarettes or candy bars with local farmers for straw to sleep on.

Every year on November 11, United States citizens celebrate a national holiday. For some, Veterans Day might be about getting a day off of school or work. For others, it is a day to honor and remember the men and women who are serving, and have served in our nation’s military. “I really do not see it as a holiday,” wrote retired Command Sergeant Major Reno Wells in an e-mail. “It is personal to me, not just remembering those who died but those who lived [and] how we as Marines and soldiers were able to be there for each other.”

In December of 1944, Nast and his company moved on to Cirey, France. “Our mission became the 7^th Army motor pool,” said Nast as he described the responsibilities of his company. It was their job to assemble motor vehicles for soldiers on the front lines. They would assemble the vehicles during the day, and at night go out as a convoy to deliver them under cover of darkness to the front lines. One of the youngest in his company, Nast was the sole electrician and responsible for setting up generators to provide lighting for the buildings as well as the electrical wiring for the various vehicles they assembled.



Only about seventy miles away from where the Battle of the Bulge was taking place, Nast recalled that officers came requesting 10 percent of his company to go fight on the front lines. Twelve men were chosen from his company to go. Nast was allowed to stay behind after his commanding officer demanded he remain with the company because of his skills as an electrician.

While some people are trying to decide which college they are going to go to, others are choosing the branch of the military in which to serve. Wells reminded readers that “Some body’s mom, sister, dad, brother, uncle, aunt, grandma and grandpa will probably die today,” and he questioned, “Does anyone other than a family member really care?” Many today have served overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan. Wells reminds students in his e-mail that “It is not a movie. Veterans are real people doing what they believe is right and doing everything they can to help and protect each other.”  He added, “We made a decision to serve our Country because of what we believe is important.”



“We were in Cirey [France] until March when the big push came through to end the war.” Nast wrote in a memoir. The pancakes and eggs gone, the now-cold coffee sat hardly touched as he continued to share his war experience. On March 28, 1945, his company headed for Germany. “Besides our own equipment we also has about two to three hundred other vehicles that we were processing” he said, “So moving was quite a project in itself.”



The Germans had left the day before, so as they came into Zweibrucken, Germany. They had to be mindful of snipers. Nast described the journey into Germany.“The first time we hit the Autobahn, it was unbelievable,” He said. The driver of the truck he was in “was zipping down the Autobahn and blew the engine on the truck!” On March 31, 1945, the company moved to Worms, Germany, where they set up in a former brewery. It was at this time that the war began accelerating and the company was moving every couple of days to keep up with the front lines.



Currently, war continues in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Wells encouraged readers to “Do something for the single parents left back here; they are struggling to make ends meet, dealing with the negative media as to how bad the war is and hoping and praying they don't get a visit to tell them something bad happened!” He also talked about protesting, saying that it “does not do much for those [soldiers] over there [in Iraq and Afghanistan] and sure does not extend the same love for our fellow human beings for those back here in the States.”





The day the war ended, Nast said his Company was in Augsburg, Germany. Along the way men in his company had picked up bottles of champagne, “As you can imagine, there was plenty of celebrating around there.” He continued to share about staying indoors in fear of getting hurt in the mayhem outside. “It was a few wild days before things settled down.” It was early May when the war ended with Germany. Nast and the younger members of his Company remained in Europe, waiting to be reassigned to serve in the Pacific Theatre. However, the war in the Pacific ended before they were officially reassigned. For the next year he was moved around Europe before, on May 20, of 1946, he received his separation papers and an Army Honorable Discharge and finally returned home.

Nast slid out of the booth, the cup of coffee still only about half gone, the plates long cleared. “Now you know my life story,” He said. The two restaurant staff bustled about serving customers while he paid, and made his way out the door. Age has slowed the pace of his gait and the length of his strides, yet the vivid memories and experiences he recounts from his war service proves his mind is still sharp and very much engaged. Having experienced a time in history that future generations can only imagine, he gives his listeners a snapshot into the lives of the countless men and women who have served.  May they never be forgotten.

 

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