Battle of the Bulge

1/17/2010
Battle of the Bulge and memorials
Bastogne, Belgium and other cities.
Picture above: My friend Lindsey and I in front of the German Tiger Tank.

I really enjoyed walking through the battles sites and discussing how they took place. I couldn’t imagine the soldier’s mindsets during the heat of battle. Not meaning to make the war sound any less but being the last person in a game of dodge ball makes me nervous already let alone one of the last in battle. I was amazed at hearing a story of how it came down to only two survivors of a platoon during the battle and how they still stayed strong and didn't abandon ship.

It was interesting learning about the different types of weapons and war tactics involved in the war. I did not know about the German Tiger tanks. Americans could not even destroy it and some bullets couldn’t even penetrate it. Further, 1/3 of the civilians in Luxembourg were killed from firing and bombs. It’s unbelievable how many lives were lost. A lot of people were involved in this war even though they did not want to be involved. Many of these instances make me question, “whose decision is it to fight/call orders and who’s to blame for the consequences?”

We visited many memorial sites such as the Mardasson Memorial near Bastogne and I started to notice more closely how each are designed differently. I think that is what I liked most. Those who designed the memorials put a lot of thought into how to best honor those who sacrificed their lives.

As a psychology minor, I was really interested in the psychological aspects of battle.
It is easy to think soldiers fight for solely for their country but I did not realize that soldiers hold a lot of their loyalty to their fellow squad in battle. It is hard to even begin to think what is going on through their minds while fighting. Also, it is hard to draw the line between selfish and selfless decisions in battle. I was not sure how I felt about that. For example, during the heat of battle a general makes a command that best serves him instead of his company. Is that fair that the whole group suffers because of one bad decision? But then in retrospect, how many bad decisions do we make in one day? It’s hard to blame someone for it.

The issue of surrendering is even more provocative as we talked about the Battle of the Bulge and Normandy. What happens when you don’t agree with your general’s command and want to surrender? You are named a coward. In Germany, they had a doctrine of surrendering. If a soldier surrendered, they would be executed.

The weather that day was not so great. It was rainy, cold and snowy still. Basically add them all together and you get miserable conditions. However, our professor, Hunt encouraged us to sacrifice some of our time to honor the soldiers. We stopped at a US Memorial site on our way back to Bastogne and even though the weather was getting worse, students still walked around the memorial sites. Even though we did feel miserable, for a little while, we experienced a glimpse of weather conditions they fought in and took time to realize the war as much as we could.

Becca:
Today was one of the days that I had been looking forward to/dreading for a while now. With all of the classes I’ve taken on World War II and all of the things I’ve read about it, for some reason, I have a really hard time comprehending the Battle of the Bulge. I think that I am a very visual learner and that I need someone to sit me down with a Risk board and show me what happened. Actually going to some of the sites of the battles was helpful in this regard, allowing me to more fully understand the layout of the troops and the consequences of each of the individual fire fights.

We have been visiting so many different memorials paying tribute to the soldiers lost during the war – it is interesting to compare how they highlight different aspects of the troops. The memorial we saw today at Mardasson emphasized the sacrifice that each state of the union made, with all fifty states represented around a center memorial. You can bet that everyone wanted to take pictures by the Texas monument.

Then we went to December 1944 Museum and got to look at actual artifacts from both the Allied and German forces. I really enjoy looking at the products the troops used during their time on the front, everything from the type of gum they chewed, to the language handbooks they had on them, to the first aid equipment they had. I know how hard it has been to carry around my luggage every day from place to place and nice hotel after nice hotel…I can’t imagine having to carry everything you need for a battle on your body. Makes you think about what is necessary/important/how luxurious our trip actually is.

Seeing the Twin Villages where several of the key battles were fought was really interesting. I loved piecing together how one thing up a road affected another thing down a different road, culminating in an eventual Allied victory. So many little things had to be right, however, or the casualty rate would have been even higher. I realized the importance of roads – everything in the Battle of the Bulge revolved around which road could be contained and cut off, and which was accessible for the troops. Our bus couldn’t get down one of the roads we had planned on exploring due to snow…if this happened in December so many years ago, you can bet there was snow, and these soldiers weren’t plowing through in huge tour buses. Accessibility was key.

We discussed the ethics of war a lot today, which I have always found to be incredibly thought provoking and interesting. Who should be held accountable for troop mishaps and poor decision-making? The individual soldier? The commanding officer? The Commander in Chief? How far does it go? Many ethical issues arose simply because of culture differences in how warfare was conducted by Americans versus the Germans. Who is responsible for culture, or the lack of awareness of it?

Needless to say, today made us all think and reflect on resources, ethics, and sacrifice.