“Survival depended on you as an individual. There were a lot of guys in my group who didn’t make it. I watched people tough as nails lose their minds. It is what is in your DNA. Are you a survivor, a leader, a follower? You don’t know until you are placed in that sudden situation. I wasn’t ready to die and give up my family so I made up my mind I would be a survivor. It developed when I was in basic training when we had to climb big mountains and I concentrated on the sweat on the back of the neck of the guy in front of me. I kept saying I would not fall out even though every inch of my body said to fall out. When the German was rushing at me with the bayonet, my thought was ‘My God he is going to stick me with a rusty bayonet.’ What a strange time to think about tetanus. You don’t know what is going to go through your mind and how you will react. When I was captured and became a Prisoner of War, the only thing on my mind was survival.

I grew up in the Depression with nothing and took any job I could get. I was a paperboy and peddled ice cream bars. My mom became a seamstress because she kept repairing our clothes. My dad was a cop and they paid him in scrip that no one accepted so he had to go on WPA. We were the greatest generation because of our drive. We had to compete to survive. You knew you had to make something of yourself or you would be thrown in the trash heap. When I was growing up someone in their 50s was an old man. Not their 80s or 90s. When my wife and I set up our financial plan. I never thought I would make it to 95. I have lost my wife and a son. You don’t know what is ahead of you.

When my dad was a cop, he helped capture the mobster John Dillinger and put him in the Crown Point Jail, but Dillinger escaped with a bar of soap shaped like a pistol. A police car was often parked in front of our house while my dad was on duty for our protection. My dad didn’t share much of this with us. For 40 years my wife didn’t know my story. I never talked about it. The war was a job and I did it. When I came home I had another job to get an education and provide for my family.

I became a mechanical engineer and opened my own business. We moved from Chicago to Miami because I couldn’t take the cold on my feet. They never recovered from being wet and frozen in the war. I started a business in Miami and built it up. We moved to Mobile in 2010 because my son was a physician here. I served on the Alabama State Board of Veterans Affairs and I am on the South Alabama Veteran’s Council. I am busy as hell all day. I still have business interests in Chicago in Miami and it helps keep me busy and my brain active.

World War II really started in 1933 between the Japanese and Germans. Everyone was patriotic then. People stood in lines for blocks at recruiting stations to sign up to join the service. That wouldn’t happen today. It was a job that had to be done. If Hitler and Japan had been successful, the world would be completely different.

That was the last big war where men faced each other. After that, it turned into guerrilla warfare and the weapons changed. The politicians don’t seem to have looked at history. All of the following wars could have been avoided. You have to learn history so you don’t make the same mistakes in the future. I can’t believe the rhetoric that comes out of Washington. There are no more statesmen and the next generations will pay for this. Our way of life peaked in the 1960s. Soon this won’t be the country I grew up in or fought for. The country is running out of money and no one is doing anything about it.

When I speak to young people or my grandchildren, I tell them to start small where your strengths are. Start at the bottom. You have to work to get to the top and learn the lessons along the way. Don’t lose the art of conversation. The opportunities are out there, but there will be a lot of roadblocks that you will have to overcome.”

Sy Lichtenfeld, Part Two

(Sy wrote a book, Kriegie 312330: A Prisoner’s Story, about his service in the 106th Infantry Division and his five months as a Prisoner of War. These are the last two paragraphs of the book:

“During World War II, there were about 142,000 American Prisoners of War from all theaters of operation. As I write this, there are less than 39,000 survivors and our numbers grow smaller by the day.

My Prisoner of War comrades, whether we shared the same camps or not, all have a bond with each other that is indescribable. As I reflect back on that time of my life, I have been able to finally find some closure to the questions that I have asked myself through the years. I also realize that I gave something to my country that not many people can say they have. I risked my life and gave up my freedom in defense of my country, and that is something never to be forgotten.”)