A Different Kind of Christmas

(the following is an excerpt from "A Different Kind of Christmas" by Dan Shine, regarding his father, Private Daniel R. (Bob) Shine, who, on Christmas Day, 1944, was near Grandmenil, Belgium)

"Twenty year old Private Daniel Shine squatted in a roadside ditch in knee-deep icy water, clutching his M-1 rifle; there was nowhere to go.

Moments before, he'd been advancing eastward with his rifle Company in near total blackness. From around a bend in the dirt road had come three tanks. As the tanks got closer, the G.I.'s realized that they were facing German Tigers. The soldiers on the right climbed an embankment and sought cover behind rocks and trees; for those on the left, the only available cover was a drainage ditch covered with ice. As they jumped into the ditch, the ice broke, soaking them.

Closer and closer came the Tigers. Just as the lead tank almost reached Shine, one of the G.I.'s on the embankment panicked and began firing his rifle at it. The tank came to a sudden stop just an arm's length from Shine; the turret began to traverse toward the slope as the tank started to fire its cannon and rake the American positions with machine gun fire. Shine looked around; there was nowhere to escape to. He could only continue to squat in the muddy ice water and hope for deliverance-or a quick end. The combined noise of the tank's engine, cannon and machine guns was almost deafening; then, in the distance he began to hear the screaming of the wounded infantrymen.

In moments, the column of tanks began to advance again. What now? Would there be a German infantry following? Shine thought of the previous Christmas he had spent at home with his family in Connecticut, and suddenly felt lonely and forsaken; would this be his slaughter? To his young eyes, the situation appeared hopeless."

My friends, as we prepare for Christmas this year with our family and loved ones, let's not forget what it took to make certain we could have a family Christmas.

Private Shine's Company was like many others, hastily formed for the final big push to win the war. Private Shine's account of the start of The Battle of The Bulge, and the over nineteen thousand American soldiers who died on the frozen battlefields, should remind us that peace is earned.

Kind words and flowery phrases did not win the freedom we enjoy. Blood, the blood of many brave men and women, bought our freedom.

So as we remember and honor the birth of Christ, let us also remember the men and women who now serve to keep us free, and certainly those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. "Greater love hath no man, than to lay down his life for another."

I end with the words from Private Shine, "...decades have passed since those terrible months when we endured the mud of Lorraine, the bitter cold of the Ardennes, the dank cellars of Saarlutern. We were miserable and cold and exhausted most of the time, we were all scared to death...but we were young and strong then, possessed of the marvelous resilience of youth, and for all the misery and fear and the hating every moment of it, the war was a great, if always terrifying adventure. Not a man among us would want to go through it again, but we are all proud of having been so severely tested and found adequate. The only regret is for those of our friends who never returned."