WW2 Vet Held in Nazi Work Camp Speaks Out

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

This guy's story is simply amazing. Too long to post in its entirety, but here's an excerpt. Read the whole thing, as they say.

 

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The U.S. prisoners, Acevedo says, were given 100 grams of bread per week made of redwood sawdust, ground glass and barley. Soup was made from cats and rats, he says. Eating dandelion leaves was considered a "gourmet meal."

 

If soldiers tried to escape, they would be shot and killed. If they were captured alive, they would be executed with gunshots to their foreheads, Acevedo says. Wooden bullets, he says, were used to shatter the inside of their brains. Medics were always asked to fill the execution holes with wax, he says.

 

"Prisoners were being murdered and tortured by the Nazis. Many of our men died, and I tried keeping track of who they were and how they died."

 

The soldiers were forced to sleep naked, two to a bunk, with no blankets. As the days and weeks progressed, his diary catalogs it all. The names, prisoner numbers and causes of death are listed by the dozens in his diary. He felt it was his duty as a medic to keep track of everyone.

 

"I'm glad I did it," he says.

 

As a medic, he says, he heard of other more horrific atrocities committed by the Nazis at camps around them. "We heard about experiments that they were doing -- peeling the skins of people, humans, political prisoners, making lampshades."

 

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/11/11/acevedo.pow/index.html

[Skywarp! 0]

Here's one I heard today that I thought was powerful. It's a story on a Vietnam Vet beginning to cope while on a flight home from the war. Maybe I'm just a sucker for Dvorak's "New World Symphony." Click the "Listen Now" button at the top of the article.

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=96828169

 

Here's an Iraq War widow talking about those first surreal days when her partner died. The part about getting her husband's clothes back and how even the smallest consolation for her was dashed is almost too much to bear.

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=96844953

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Zamperini

 

This is a really really brief version of this man's amazing tale: He was an Olympic runner, Who joined the military, was stranded in enemy waters for 47 days, then captured by Japanese on patrol, trapped in a prison camp for years, the end of the war saw him freed. He became bitter and wanted to find the guards in his POW camp and kill them. He stumbled upon a religious revival and gave up his bitterness for the Lord, and went back and actually told many of the POW guards he forgave them. Awesome book. "Devil at my Heels"

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Sijan

 

Another awesome book/story: A Vietnam pilot crashes - With a fractured skull, mangled right hand, compound fracture of the left leg, without food and little water, and no survival kit, Sijan evaded enemy forces for 46 days (all the time "crawling" or rather scooting on his back down the rocky limestone karst on which he landed, causing even more wounds) before being captured on December 25, 1967. Although emaciated and in poor shape, he managed to overpower his guard and escape, but was recaptured within hours. He was transported to a holding compound in Vinh, North Vietnam, where he was put into the care of other American POWs, Bob Craner and Guy Gruters. Here, in even more pain from his wounds, he suffered beatings from his captors, but never gave any information other than what the Geneva Convention allowed. After further travel to Hanoi, Sijan suffering from exhaustion, malnutrition, and disease, died in captivity on January 22, 1968.