Vern Doesn’t Eat French Bread Anymore
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Vern was a spectacular human I used to have breakfast with once a month. At 98 he traded in his red Dodge Charger for something more age appropriate. But at 100 he bought an RV.
His early life during the Great Depression prepped him for war and the hundreds of days of consecutive combat he would experience after landing with the 29th Division on D-Day. It taught him survival and self-dependency.
“No matter how bad things got, my dad never took handouts or went on government welfare.” Vern would tell me proudly. “It was tough during the depression; we didn’t know how we’d get by - but Dad always provided.”
His father’s work ethic inspired and imbued in him a determination and tenacity for life that never left him till he died at 101.
I remember a couple of years ago when he had covid and double pneumonia; we were all pretty sure he was about to buy the farm. But Vern got it into his head that he wanted to be home for Christmas. Practically, this was an impossible wish. But impossible was not in his vocabulary. After exhausting the staff at the rehab center for nearly a month he was cleared, and Christmas Eve arrived at his home in Kerrville, Texas. It was a miracle, but in retrospect I should’ve expected nothing less from Vern.
With Vern, there was always a lot of conversation between the old war vets about what caliber pistol they preferred to carry. He told us once that when his wife would go into a store, he would spend his idle time in the car contemplating the quickest way to access his pistol out of the glove compartment if someone came up to him.
Other times he used to regale us with stories of war: how long he went without a shower (weeks at a time) and the pair of dry socks he kept in his waist band - sometimes what felt like the last element of civilization.
His memory for wartime detail was impeccable, his stories were uttered very matter-of-factly, without pomp and circumstance. Just as it was. And he didn’t glamorize it either.
But not all the stories of France were about the 23 year old who learned to kill and kill well. Sometimes they were just good old-fashioned human interest stories.
Vern Doesn’t Eat French Bread Anymore
One day during a brief respite in fighting Vern and a few buddies went by a French farmhouse looking for something to eat or drink.
The farmer was outside kneading dough vigorously. His young son was standing by watching the proceedings.
“Suddenly the farmer stopped kneading, went around the corner of the barn and took a whiz.”
At this moment Vern’s story was interrupted by Warren - a combat veteran of the Italy campaign who was completely deaf. “Did what?” Warren yelled.
Vern yelled back, “Took a whiz! Wiz!”
Warren repeated the phrase to himself very loudly and chuckled in his iconic way. Everyone laughed.
Vern continued his story:
“The farmer finished “his business” and without much ado, wiping his hands on his shirt, went back to kneading the dough.”
Vern and his buddies looked on in horror and then and there decided not to eat any more French bread.
Operation Meatball
Honoring Veterans & Connecting Them With the Youth of Today
