{"id":359923,"date":"2025-01-21T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=359923"},"modified":"2025-01-23T14:16:56","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T14:16:56","slug":"belgian-veteran-remembers-us-armys-wwii-sacrifice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=359923","title":{"rendered":"Belgian veteran remembers US Army’s WWII sacrifice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Paul Goffin says he is forever thankful to the American Soldiers who liberated his native Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.\u202f
\n (Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Jonathan Austin)<\/span>
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\n VIEW ORIGINAL<\/a>
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WASHINGTON \u2014 Paul Goffin has spent much of his adult life solemnly remembering the American Army Soldiers who fought to free his home country, Belgium, during World War II.<\/p>\n

Yet, it wasn\u2019t until Goffin retired in 1990 from the World Bank in the Washington, D.C., area that he could dedicate serious time to help recognize the men who fought during the Battle of the Bulge, the largest and deadliest conflict of the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey represented everything,\u201d said Goffin, now 100, during an interview at his northern Virginia home. “They brought back the freedom which we didn’t have, the hope for life, for a better life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The battle began on the morning of Dec. 16, 1944, when more than 200,000 German troops launched Adolf Hitler’s last bid to salvage the war. This counterattack was meant to reverse several German military defeats following the Allied troops landing in German-occupied France in the summer of 1944.<\/p>\n

The United States and its allies had moved quickly across France during the second half of 1944 on the way to Berlin, and some hoped the war in Europe might be over by Christmas.<\/p>\n

The Germans had another idea, and they struck back in the Ardennes Forest along a 75-mile-long remote front line held by four American Army divisions stationed there.<\/p>\n

Many U.S. Army units were overrun in the unexpected onslaught.\u202fGerman troops surged 50 miles toward the Meuse River in Belgium but failed to split the allies before being subdued and defeated.<\/p>\n

Life under the Nazi reign\u202f<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The Belgians had spent several years under Nazi domination, Goffin said. He was 15 years old when the Germans invaded his homeland in 1940.<\/p>\n

Goffin\u2019s family had a farm not far from the German and Dutch border. They used about 10 horses on the farm, and the German military also used horses to haul implements of war. It wasn\u2019t long before the Germans came by the farm, Goffin remembered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey took the horses and left,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A few hours later, the German soldiers came back. They had seen the garage, Goffin said. They opened the garage doors, saw the car, and ordered Goffin\u2019s father to give them the keys.<\/p>\n

The younger Goffin was aghast. He said he didn\u2019t understand why the invaders could come into his family\u2019s home and demand things.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His mother stepped in and took him aside. She told his father to give them the keys. He did so, and they drove away.<\/p>\n

Goffin said he never forgot what his mother then said: \u201cDid you see on their buckles?\u00a0 ‘Gott mit uns\u2019 – \u2018God is with us.’\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the Germans had worn the same buckles in World War I.<\/p>\n

Goffin said he wondered why God was with them and not with the Belgians, but he knew the answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are objects. We belong to them,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they don’t like us, they discard us. That became the way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn’t travel more than three or four miles in the area where we lived,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhen I was 18, they arrested my cousin with whom I had grown up, and he got shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family never knew why the cousin was killed.<\/p>\n

Goffin was arrested and forced to do labor at a nearby airfield when the Germans were preparing their winter 1944 counterattack.<\/p>\n

Americans were wonderful<\/strong><\/h5>\n

When the Germans struck during the Battle of the Bulge, Goffin, who was 20, joined the 21st Fusiliers Battalion of the Belgian reconstructed army. His unit served with American and British troops in patrolling and securing territories in the Rhine area on the Belgian German border.<\/p>\n

Because the U.S. Army had rapidly advanced in 1944, reaching and crossing the Rhine River, Goffin said the area become a no man’s land. Cities were destroyed and there were no functioning institutions, no transportation, no shops, he said.<\/p>\n

Farms were abandoned, and liberated political prisoners and forced laborers were roaming around. The local population tried to stay sheltered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Through it all, Goffin was interacting with the U.S. Army Soldiers, a bunch of young men who came from the four corners of America. He was amazed by them, he said. They were all around his age; some younger. He said the Army troops were wonderful guys full of compassion and understanding.<\/p>\n

He said he looks back on that time and realizes they were spending critically formative years of their lives fighting tooth-and-nail to save Europe.<\/p>\n

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\n Medics with Company A, 110th Medical Battalion, evacuate wounded during the Battle of the Bulge near Lutrebois, Belgium, in January 1945.
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U.S. casualties in the Battle of the Bulge were staggering, with 19,000 killed, 47,000 wounded, and 23,000 either captured or missing. It was the bloodiest battle American Soldiers have ever fought on foreign soil.<\/p>\n

A few months after the battle, Germany surrendered. Those same American GIs wanted to go home and forget about everything they had seen, Goffin said.<\/p>\n

But they couldn’t forget.<\/p>\n

Decades passed, but the American veterans couldn\u2019t forget the Ardennes, the cold weather, the horror of the fight. They couldn’t forget the Belgians.<\/p>\n

By 1990, Goffin, who had earned his master\u2019s degree in agricultural economics from Iowa State College, retired from the World Bank after a 25-year career dealing with agricultural development projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America.<\/p>\n

He said he had heard that World War II Army veterans were showing up at the embassy in Belgium, ready to acknowledge their war experiences and revisit the Ardennes.<\/p>\n

Active in the Belgian community and vice president of the Belgian American Association, Goffin became their colleague and partner.<\/p>\n

The veterans united in their goal of leaving a legacy of their service in the Ardennes Forest. They formalized their reunions and established the Battle of the Bulge Historical Foundation.<\/p>\n

After years of deliberations, the veterans reached a consensus to build a conference table out of Ardennes Forest wood to honor and memorialize not only the American Soldiers who fought there in the winter of 1944-45, but also those who were executed by the Nazis during the battle.<\/p>\n

\u2018They fought against tyranny\u2019\u202f<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Army veterans traveled to Belgium to select the oak trees for the effort, and a Belgian cabinetmaker agreed to make the table.<\/p>\n

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\n The Battle of the Bulge Table, designed by veterans in the Battle of the Bulge Historical Foundation and completed in 1994, is made of oak harvested from the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. The table is housed in the Pentagon.
\n (Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by 1st Sgt. Andrew Porch )<\/span>
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That project was completed in 1994 in Stavelot, Belgium. It displays the insignia of the 45 Army divisions who fought during the battle and includes designs honoring those executed by the Nazis.<\/p>\n

The table was initially used in the Army Memorial Room at Fort Meade, Maryland, but today resides within the Army\u2019s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, Plans and Policy at the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

For years after the table\u2019s completion, Goffin said he felt at home at Battle of the Bulge reunions. He also served as a trustee of the Battle of the Bulge Historical Foundation.<\/p>\n

And after all the years, he still remembers the kindness and compassion the U.S. Army Soldiers had for Belgians like him, and how those young men saved Europe at high cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey fought back against tyranny,\u201d Goffin said. \u201cThey fought in the snow and the ice and the blood \u2026 and they want us to remember that we have to be ready to fight for it\u201d if the need ever arises again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Goffin says he is forever thankful to the American Soldiers who liberated his native Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.\u202f (Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Jonathan Austin) VIEW ORIGINAL WASHINGTON \u2014 Paul Goffin has spent much of his adult life solemnly remembering the American Army Soldiers who fought to free his home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359446,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=359923"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359926,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359923\/revisions\/359926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/359446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=359923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=359923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=359923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}