Veterans Day – WWII Vet Joe Meiners III

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing; A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away; A time to tear, And a time to sew; A time to keep silence, And a time to speak; A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”  Luke 1:37

But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”  Matthew 19:26

This is the third segment of my interview with WWII veteran Joe Meiner. I encourage you to read parts one and two of the remarkable events surrounding Joe’s service to his country (WW II Veteran Joe Meiners part I, WW II Veteran Joe Meiners part II).

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“We got into Belgium when the Battle of the Bulge broke out. We were in the spearhead going into the battle. We were in what was called “high priority”, because we were needed to keep the equipment running.

“The bombs and artillery were coming in real heavy. I jumped into a foxhole because the air was just full of shrapnel. A bomb landed on the edge of my foxhole. It knocked me unconscious immediately. They found me in the bottom of that bomb crater, and said I was bleeding from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. Blood was coming out of my skin; I was sweating blood. I was bleeding out of my eyes, my ears, my nose, my mouth, and bleeding internally.

“It took them six hours to get me to a field hospital, because we were pinned down. That’s where I came to, not knowing where I was. I couldn’t see and I couldn’t hear. I was totally deaf and totally blind. But I wished I wouldn’t have come to, because I was hurting so bad. It felt like my whole body had blown wide open. The pain was so severe the pain killers wouldn’t help any. I couldn’t get away from the pain. Most people don’t know what real pain is, but that was real pain. Excruciating pain, and I couldn’t get away from it.

“I was only in the hospital one week. They picked me up, and I was still deaf and blind. The doctor told the people who picked me up – ‘This guy should be dead. He came in here out of blood.’ It took seven units of blood just to get me back. Then I went through several more units, since I was still bleeding.

“The guys that picked me up kept driving and driving. I knew I was in a jeep; I could feel that. I figured they were going to ship me back to the States because I’m deaf and blind. But pretty soon I could smell the smells of the front lines. I could feel the bomb explosions. They got me to my company. My partner took me by the hand and led me to my truck. We took off, and I found out later we went out into no-man’s-land again.

“There was a dozer, I could feel the track. My partner laid my hand on the fuel pump, so I figured something was wrong with it. I told my partner to clean it off, we would have to open it up. I told him what wrenches to hand me, and I opened it up. I repaired it and put it back together. And got that old Cat a running.”

Joe chuckled. “I couldn’t see it or hear it, but in my mind’s eye I could see it – because I’d repaired a hundred of those pumps. After I got my eyesight and hearing back, my commander said I was probably the only man in the armed forces who repaired something he couldn’t see or hear.

“They brought my clothes out – the ones I was wearing when the bomb went off – when I could hear and see again. I couldn’t see or hear very well yet, but I could a little. My clothes were literally ripped to shreds from the shrapnel of the bomb. But I didn’t have a scratch on my skin. Being a Christian, I know the Lord had to be in that fox hole with me.”

Joe went on to describe the relentless tension that he and the others were under.

“There was constant pressure, constant stress. On night guard duty we could see Germans parachuting down near us, but we were told not to shoot because we would give away our position. Once on night guard duty I was changing the guard with another man. He was extremely nervous. I gave the password, and he whirled around. I was looking right down the end of his rifle. He saw how close he’d come to shooting me, and just fell on the ground and broke down. We never saw him again.

“We would often hear bullets go popping by our ears, and you never knew if the next one had your name on it. You could hear shrapnel whiz past real close to your head. It was constant high stress, high pressure day after day.”

In April of 1945, Joe and his outfit were involved in liberating Buchenwald concentration camp. Joe said they could smell the rotting human flesh long before they got to the camp. Once there, he said the stench of death was so strong it was almost overpowering. Some of the prisoners managed to stagger toward them, others crawled, while some dragged themselves across the dirt on their stomachs. Joe said his unit set up a kitchen and made bouillon soup. He and others in his group were each given a prisoner to feed. They had to slowly spoon-feed them, because their stomachs were shrunk so small, they couldn’t take in much nutrition at one time.

After what must have seemed like a lifetime, Joe boarded a ship back to the US. He said when he first saw the Statue of Liberty, the sight touched him deeply.

Joe said when they got back to Camp Shanks, there was a young lieutenant there who’d never been overseas. He started ordering us to start marching, drilling. Then the master sergeant in my outfit told us to stop, fall out, and go back to our barracks.

Joe chuckled again: “That lieutenant started screaming and jumping up and down. Said he was going to court-martial all of us. Then on the announcement board we saw we were all put on KP (kitchen police) duty. Well, they had these great big ovens where they’d cook a half a beef at one time. There were all these cakes and pies. We were just going around chowing down on everything we could get our hands on. Everybody just wanted to eat, and they couldn’t get anybody to do anything else. Finally, the mess sergeant just threw up his hands and told us all to get out of there.”

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While in training for the military, Joe was granted emergency leave to go back to his family farm and help with the harvest. It was then that he married his beloved wife, Lucy.

Joe had landed on Utah Beach in Normandy on D-Day, June 6,1944, and his son, Dale, was born seventeen days later, on June 23. When Joe finally got off the last train going home, he said he spotted his wife and young son standing on the platform.

“They looked like two angels when I saw them. My son toddled up to me, lifted up his hands, and said ‘Daddy.’ I lifted Dale into the air and hugged him. I started to weep. Then Lucy joined us, and she began to weep. My son looked at my wife, then at me. He must have figured it was time to cry, so he started weeping as well.”

Joe said the whole event was etched in his mind, and just so beautiful.

When I asked Joe what one thing in his life he was most thankful for, he stumbled a while before responding. He said there were just so many, many things for him to be thankful about. “Just too many things. One thing is that I had such a wonderful wife. The most supportive than any wife could be.”

I asked Joe about her, and he became somber. “Lucy died in 1983. My son died at age 18, in 1962. I’ve seen a lot of death, but this hit really close to home. This has been, this has been tough. I really struggled.”

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Joe stated that he and none of his unit ever got a medal for anything. Some people have asked him why he didn’t complain to someone about that. “I didn’t go into this war to get any medals,” Joe explained. “I went to protect my country. Adolph Hitler would have been in this country if he wasn’t stopped. We once came across some young German boys, 10-11 years old. I asked them why their English was so good. They had been taken as babies; they didn’t even know their parents. They were being trained to occupy America. Hitler had some long-range plans.”

When I asked what Joe wanted to be remembered for, he said for his help to the down-and-outers. He told me stories of literally picking people up out of the gutter to help them, and how they had gone on to do well in life, and make positive contributions to society.

Joe began to write poetry shortly after his beloved wife Lucy died. He said it helps him cope. Here is a short excerpt from one of his poems:

“You cannot see the scars of man,

That you can see by day.

But you can see the moon and stars,

In God’s great Milky Way.

For when darkness enfolds you,

Have no fear,

For the loving hand of God is always near.”

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Thank you, Joe. I’d imagine you got your medals and hero’s welcome on December 15, 2019.

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I hope you will take the time to thank a veteran for his or her service to our country. Seems the least we could do.

Have a great day.