I never even got a
cold and was thankful for all the shots we got in the service,
thinking they must have helped.
One sunny day after a night's march we stopped at a farm house to
spend the day and rest. Bruce and I were in an apple orchard just
behind the barns. Within minutes there were little fires going
everywhere and we could smell strange odors of food. Eggs and
chicken, and whatever else could be found around the barns, were
cooking. Bruce got some eggs and potatoes while I got a little fire
started. We cooked in rusty old tin cans we found in junk piles as we
had no other utensils. We must have cleaned out some of these farms
but it was either that or starve. Sometimes along the march the Red
Cross trucks would catch up with us with some parcels that we divided
among us. We also discovered that the mounds of dirt in fields near
the road covered stacks of potatoes or rutabagas to keep them from
freezing. We would dig out the rutabagas and eat them raw.
When we stopped in the small villages we took over all the empty
churches and buildings for sleeping and guys would immediately start
out to trade cigarettes and anything else we had for food. I was
never any good at this so Bruce used to scrounge for us. In friendly
places we did quite well at this as the people were desperate for
American cigarettes. This type of marching and spreading out in farms
and villages kept us mixed up with different guys all the time.
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