Dear Ben:

Whenever I write something to someone Tony
never redirects it to where it was intended, so I just
decided to aim for the heart on this one.

I offered a local photog an opportunity to raise
some money for the rennovations of his photography
studio by selling some of Tony's photos there. So we
got to talking about the War. His father was ROTC at
University of Nebraska, and then built the Alcan
Highway in Alaska and landed on Normandy beach 30 days
after D-Day, he was a captain, having majored in
elctrical engineering. And he was scolded by your
Grandfather twice, and he told me a story he said he
had never told anyone. He was attached to Pattons fast
moving units by building bridges, and one day the
General comes to visit the pontoon site, and he finds
out that two non-coms are overseeing two dif bridges,
and he complains to this Captain, that something as
serious as building a bridge for 40 ton tanks should
be overseen by men with something on their collar that
shined. The Captain thought about the validity of
Patton's point, but then told him the deal. "Because
there have been so many bridges built to satisfy the
demands of the offensive, I simply ran out of officers
to be in charge. Both soldiers are qualified, though,
one worked with me on the road building in Alaska, and
the other was an Engineering graduate (at some
prestigeous University)" Patton, called to the front,
he had made his decision. The two NCO's were summoned,
and they must have been shaking more the closer they
got to the tent. Meanwhile Patton took a chair, and
had a talk with the Captain for about 45 minutes. They
talked about horses, primarily, and it was either the
Captain or his father, one of them actually had bred
horses for a living, so one can only imagine how in
depth the talk went. The two officers arrive, and to
make a long story short, Patton digs in his pockets
and pulls out two sets of 2nd Leuitenant bars and does
a battle field commision right there. Even though in
that theatre of the war there was a shortage of
Engineer officers, for the duration of the War the
Captain never lost his 2 leuitenants.

The second time Patton crossed paths with this
Captain, came also in France. More bridge building.
Patton was surveying the river bed to examine the
efficiency of bridge construction, when he was
disturbed by what he saw. The engineers were in the
water afitting the pontoons together in their skivies,
the General was fumed, normally he fine a soldier 25
dollars if a button was unbuttoned on the uniform, so
this was about to pout smoke through his ears, so he
had to do something. He approached Captain Crowley,
and demanded an appropriate explanation for this
flouting of the letter of his law. The Captain simply
said: "Well, General, the men, they, can put up with
the cold of the river for a while, but when they come
out of the water they like to have something dry to
step into..." After that Patton made a new directive
that engineers, could at the front decide for
themselves what amount of stitching is appropriate for
the circumstances of the operation.

The last story has never been told, because in
it might be a dishonorable discharge, or the
equivalent dishonor whatever that might be, even if
all parties are no longer living or breathing, so it
has been a secret for all time, up until today. The
Captain and his engineers were back at the
headquaters, and they saw some nice looking practice
rifles laying against the HQ, and so they looked this
way and that, engineers who prolly never carried a gun
and were not sick of the sound they made, made off
with them. Meanwhile Patton turned the whole base into
an uproar, someone had stolen his cherished practice
rifles from his personal collection! After all, it is
as I understand it, that Patton was quite a marksman
and had received a medal in some Olympic heptathalon
event. So anyways, the Engineers had left camp and
went off somewhere to shoot freely in the French
countryside, and when they returned to the base, they
parked the jeep just outside of the main gate, because
the MPS were making it difficult for anyone to enter
or leave the camp because of the pilfering. They
saunter up to the MPS and ask them like a bypasser
might rubber neck at a fire, wondering how it started.
Once told they return to the Jeep and cover Patton's
rifles with their jackets. Luckily they were only
searching vehicles leaving the bee hive and not ones
entering the fire from the frying pan. So they quickly
propped the rifles up against the tent, and no one
ever said a word.

In Truth,

David Martti Vaccaro