War Hero

It was late 1944 in northern Italy. My great-uncle, Frank Drudge, was a soldier in the 85^th Infantry Division of the United States Army. The objective of his division was to push upwards through Italy into the “soft underbelly of the axis”.

His company had just received a new captain, who was new to the war. Consequently, he immediately ordered Frank, a squad leader, to take his men out on patrol.

“I tried to tell him it wasn’t as safe out there as he thought,” Frank said. But he insisted on a patrol to gather enemy intelligence.

Frank took his squad, consisting of eight men, and began moving away from American lines.

“We had gotten about as far as I wanted to go,” Frank said. “I felt it wasn’t safer to go any farther.”

Frank told his men to lie against a bank they had come to. They waited there until 0200 hours when they heard a group of Germans approaching.

“I told my men to wait behind the bank while I crawled forward to investigate. There was a little hole in the brush I crawled through, and I told my men to shoot anything that didn’t come back through that hole.”

When he got over the bank, Frank saw a patrol of 17 heavily armed Germans. Knowing they could not stand up to them in a fair fight, Frank ordered an ambush.

“I pulled out my grenades, and ordered my men to open fire with their rifles and grenades as soon as I had thrown mine.”

Frank lofted his grenade towards the Germans as his men threw grenades of their own, and followed this up with furious rifle fire. After a short firefight, the German patrol was quiet. Knowing they had already traveled deep into enemy territory, Frank chose not to advance and instead brought his patrol back to American lines.

The next day, advancing American soldiers found the bodies of 15 Germans were Frank’s squad had ambushed them the previous night. Only two of Frank’s men had been wounded, and none killed.

Frank was awarded the Bronze Star for his valor in combat. The Bronze Star is awarded for “bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service above and beyond the call of duty.” It is our nation’s fourth highest military honor. Like most medal recipients, Frank refuses to acknowledge that he did anything special.

“I was just doing my duty.”

A special birthday

Frank’s birthday is May 7. This also happens to be V-E Day, the end of World War Two in Europe. At this point in the war, there was almost no fighting, and Frank’s unit was barracked in the northern Italian town of Udine.

His commanding officer put the company on strict orders to not leave the compound under any circumstances. Their German counterparts on the other side of town, however, had no such restrictions and we’re free to roam the town, and being soldiers this means pubs, as they pleased.

This was too much for Frank. It was his birthday, the war was over, and he had made it through alive and relatively unscathed.

He sneaked out of the compound and spent his birthday celebrating and drinking the night away with his new-found friends.

The next morning he woke up safe and sound in his bed.

Later in the morning, his captain called him in, “Drudge, you were aware of my order to stay in the compound last night, were you not?”

“Yes, sir” Frank replied.

“So then what did you do last night for your birthday?”

“Oh, you know. Played some cards with the boys.”

“Oh that’s interesting,” his captain replied. “That’s not what the Germans said who brought you to the front gate last night.”

Mortal enemies the night before, Frank and the Germans had become best of friends while celebrating the end of the war. Those two German soldiers had gone from shooting at Frank to making sure he got back to his base safely.

How to deal with your problems

It was the mid-1940s and Frank had just gotten back from the war. In the spirit of being a true Hoosier, he took my grandpa, Tom, to the high school basketball sectional tournament.

In those days it didn’t get any bigger than high school basketball in Indiana. The local sectional was being held in a gym that only seated 1,000 people. Frank knew it would be packed so he and Tom planned to get there early.

There were already lines when they got to the game, but they went to a side door and were only fourth in line, an excellent spot. While they were waiting for the doors to open, a man came and cut in front of them.

First, Frank politely asked the man what he was doing. The man simply ignored him.

“I’ve been standing in line for 3 years in the Army and I don’t want guys cutting in front of me.”

The man continued to ignore him.

“Grab a leg,” Frank said to 13-year old Tom.

Tom grabbed the man’s leg as Frank grabbed the rest of him.

They dragged the man over to the nearby railing and pitched the man onto the concrete steps 6-8 ft below.

The man quickly scrambled to his feet as Frank offered him a spot at the back of the still-short line. The man said nothing and walked off.

The nearby fans said nothing as they agreed with what Frank had done as that was how you handled things in those days.

“Frank taught me that was how you handled things like that,” Tom said. “You don’t let people push you around.”

The Great Deception

Frank played basketball for Silver Lake High School from the late 1930s to the early 1940s. Unfortunately, the Ramblers were terrible. Consequently, a local tavern owner said that if the team ever won a game, he would give them all free hamburgers.

On this night the Silver Lake squad was traveling to play Etna Green. Etna Green had a good team that year and no one expected Silver Lake to win. The Ramblers battled hard and gave it their best effort.

Etna Green won by 40.

On the way home, the Silver Lake team stumbled upon a great realization. No one from Silver Lake had come to the game. No one knew they lost!

As the bus rolled back in to Silver Lake, the players opened the windows and began singing, “We won! We won! We won, by golly, we won!”

True to his word, the tavern owner fired up his grill and began making the promised burgers. The team stopped at their high school, then headed over to the tavern to eat their supper.

As he served the burgers, the tavern owner began asking about the game. The players told him the score, but they conveniently reversed the scores in their favor.

The meal and conversation continued, and the owner asked about players stats. The team began telling him, “Oh so and so had three points, he had five, he had six.”

All of a sudden the tavern owner made the connection. “Wait a minute, that doesn’t add up!” he said. Fortunately, he was a good sport about it and laughed as the team finished their meal.

Mousetraps

After the war, Frank worked a variety of jobs, but his first was a grocer. Like most groceries of the day, Frank’s store had jars of penny candy on the counter. There were approximately six of these jars and they held everything from peppermints to chocolate drops.

As there wasn’t much to do in the late 40’s, the local high school boys would often stop by the store to talk to Frank, only a few years their senior. They would listen to his war stories, and discuss the sports teams of the day.

They also gathered to pitch pennies, a game in which you tossed pennies at a crack in the floor, and the goal was to be the closest to the crack.

While the boys were there, they would always sneak a few pieces of candy out of the jars without telling Frank.

“I don’t know if they thought they were being sly, or what,” said Helen, Frank’s wife.

But he knew.

Frank wasn’t too mad, so he thought he’d teach the boys a lesson while having a little fun at the same time.

“I put mousetraps in all of the jars,” Frank said. “Then I covered them over with candy so the boys wouldn’t see them until it was too late.”

Sure enough, the boys were in for a surprise the next day when they tried to steal some candy. After recovering from their shock and minor pain, the boys had a laugh with Frank and agreed they had learned their lesson.