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Talk:Eisenhower and German POWs

mhermenMav, Ortolan & Helga, I have tried my best to be accomodating to Helga and the new information she has uncovered. I also tried to present this information from the Wikipedia's neutral point of view.

I welcome any suggestions, especially from Helga, on how to improve this article or Dwight Eisenhower.

Sincerely, Ed Poor

text from Talk:Dwight D. Eisenhower

Helga, unless YOU bring some acceptable proof of this hypothesis that does not come from some Holocaust revisionist website with neo-Nazi links, I will remove your additions every time I see them. [[User:Danny|Danny]

Danny, read again what I had put in last. I took out all reference to Buscue, whose name someone other than me had inserted to begin with. I am stating (and showing the website) by the German Government German Historical Museum with the Missing Person figures of the end of 1947 as 1.8 mill POWs and 1.6 mill civilians, by the Red Cross. The Senator's proof to the Senate for the famine is not known to me, nore do I know if it still exists or if it was destroyed with the records as well. General George Patton, another big player in Germany, by coincidence accidentally died Dec 1945.

Proof on internet are the missing under Allied Control Military Occupation Government. The Allied Control, Eisenhower, had set up and controlled every function in Germany from May 5, 1945 until 1949, after which a limited German Government was allowed to function. If you want to add missing persons to the headline column of the POW's and the Starvation, that would be alright with me.H. Jonat

Proof or no piece. Danny

What do you mean ,proof ? H. Jonat

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The proof you tried to bring last night at German POWs was insidious. If you want to condemnd President Eisenhower of genocide, bring proof of your accusations. Danny

I much prefer to have Eisenhower cleared of this. But with the apparent destruction of records over several years and absolutely no one bringing any proof to clear him I can only go by numbers of people in his time, who acused him and not only him, but the administration. Unfortunately. H. Jonat

This is getting ridiculous. People are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. Claiming something and then saying the proof (records) do not exist (were destroyed) is hardly proof either. The only people you have brought that said anything like that so far are one Senator better known for developing the jukebox, another Senator who also said that White people have the inalienable right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of dead niggers," a neo-Nazi revisionist website, and an author who quotes someone who says he was misquoted. Spare me. Danny

I agree. This page is on my watchlist (as are others that Helga has touched) and I will revert anything that is presented here that does not come with some legit proof. --mav 18:51 Aug 3, 2002 (PDT)

I will leave it in if and only if there is adequate proof of your accusations. Danny

end text from Talk:Dwight D. Eisenhower

Gareth wrote:

I should know better than to stick my oar in on the non-superficial... :)

But I say thank you. In fact, I already incorporated some of Ambrose's stuff to balance what Helga found. --Ed Poor

To Ed Poor et al, thank you for putting the seperate section in. While it seems new, it is actually not new at all, rather it has been well covered (up) for decades. Could the personally selected Eisenhower biographer possibly have anything to do with this ? I would like to read official US government statistics and statements, that could clear this up, but is that possible ? It is said that the majority of the US documents on this episode were destroyed in 1947. H. Jonat

Why is this an article in the Wikipedia? IF this information is wroth introducing, which I doubt, it should be under an article on the biography of Eisenhower. It does NOT rate its own separate article. -- Zoe

It was a part of the Eisenhower biography, but for now it has been branched off. H. Jonat

The info here is too detailed for the main article Helga -- now that this topic has its own article a better explanation of the evevents can be presented (NPOV of course rulling the day). --mav

I saw the history below. I don't understand why it rates our attention, let alone all of the smoke and heat. -- Zoe

Zoe, at best this article may become a sub-article of the main Eisenhower one if it is made to conform to NPOV. The reason it was taken out of the main article is because it was too detailed, highly POV, and was more an essay about his actions rather than the actions themselves. Besides the main article is already on the longish side and needs some trimming as is -- the addition of such a large amount of text was not needed. There is already a paragraph lead-in to this sub-article in the main article. -mav

Am I imagining it, or do the numbers keep changing each revision? ;-) Danny

I should note that James Bacque isn't the only author to make these allegations. From "Saving Private Power" (ISBN 188712845x -- note the x at the end of the ISBN, link won't work):

"Captured Germans held in France under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower were systematically starved," writes David K. Wright (1)...

(1) is p. 70 of A Multi-cultural Portrait of World War II, David K Wright, published by Marshall Cavendish, 1994 ISBN 1854356631, but it doesn't show up in pricescan, so see http://vax1.memphis.lib.tn.us/MARION/AFB-7510

I have not had a chance to read David Wright's books, so I don't know what he references. djk

Wright's book is part of a young adult reference series. It was published after Bacque's book, and there is a good chance that Wright's source for the quote is actually the Bacque book. Wright himself is not an expert, I don't think -- from his list of works, it appears he's a professional textbook writer... without more information, I think we have to discount the value of his support. JHK

In the same vein, Bacque is not a historian but a novelist. Danny

Hence, "Canadian novelist James Bacque wrote..." (see Dwight Eisenhower). --Ed Poor

Regarding

The 13.500.000 food packages received by the International Red Cross designated for the prisoners were left to spoil and returned to the Red Cross.

Does this mean that Eisenhower returned spoiled food to the Red Cross? What would the Red Cross want with spoiled food?
If the 13.5 million food packages were still edible, what did the Red Cross do with them? Did they distribute them to other starving people?
What reason did Eisenhower give for returning the packages.

If these questions are answered, the article will be much better. --Ed Poor

I removed the following: A leading daily even wrote, that Mr. Gollancz did not get the full dept of the policy "On the contrary it (the starvation) is the product of foresight. It was deliberatly planned at Yalta by Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, and the program in all its brutality was later confirmed by Truman, Attlee, and Stalin.... The intent to starve the German people to death is being carried out with a remorselessness unknown in the western world since the Mongol conquest"...

"Denmark had in vain, drawn the attention of Britain, the United States and UNRRA to the facts (that they have increased and ample surplus food stocks nearest to Germany), but have received no reply. There are records, that plenty of food was available in Germany and in Europe, but that it was deliberately not passed on the German civilians, nore to German POW's.

If you have proof of these claims, please show it. Otherwise, it's inappropriate here. Give us the name of the "leading daily" as well, or don't quote them. -- Zoe

I found an eyewitness account [1] (http://www.rense.com/general19/camps.htm) by an American GI about a prison camp where 50,000 German soldiers given short rations; some of these prisoners starved to death. Now we just have to account for the other 8,950,000 Bacque was talking about. --Ed Poor

This topic is, at best, a subject that is controversial even among professionals, and at worst, sheer crankery on par with Holocaust Revisionism. There just aren't enough hard facts to warrant an encyclopedia entry. --Marknau

Not only that, but we might all be the victim of propaganda. Consider this source [2] (http://www.nazi-lauck-nsdapao.com/eng-uk-010.htm) which links its accusations of US genocide to its repudiation of Israel's claim to statehood. *sigh* All roads lead to the Middle East, eh? --Ed Poor

I removed controversial Senator Eastland of Mississippi. It is not my intention to post controversial people. I have/had no idea ,who he is, other that he was a US senator. Does not reflect well on the US senate,does it?, if it is true that he was a racist.

True. Of course, Germany would never elect a racist, would it? Danny

To Ed Poor, on the 50.000 German soldiers reported by one American GI, that was for that one camp, that he was a US POW guard in. There have been many camps with 50.000 or so each (many of them civilians, women and children, who were herded in as well.

I have not seen anyone quoting and posting an official government site, giving clear information.

Why not ?

Is that, because the records were mostly destroyed between 1947- 50, as it is said ? H. Jonat

Or is it possible that it never happened? It's hard to find documentation on something that doesn't exist. -- Zoe

I am against war atrocities. One of the reasons I left the army, abandoning a promising prospective career as an officer, was that I did not want to be put in a position where I would either have to commit an atrocity or face courtmartial. If there is evidence of atrocities, it does not matter to me whether "our side" or "their side" committed them. I still hate atrocities. Exposing them in an encyclopedia MIGHT make it less likely that such atrocities will be repeated. --Ed Poor

I agree, Ed, if there is PROOF of these accusations, then I see no problem in including them, but this is all speculation until proof is presented. -- Zoe

Danny, when Hitler took over the power in 1933, he was put in by International Financiers. The majority Social Democratic Party, SPD of Germany was outlawed when Hitler took over. Hardly a true election. I thought I had stated that in several of my entries. I guess I need to point this out some more.

Odd, the way how so many of our lovely little dictators, such as Noriega, Sadam Hussein, BinLaden, get put into power, isn't it?

To Ed, right now you still have a choice, people then did not, they were drafted.

Zoe, if you want to look for proof, you need to go to the US archives, and go talk to the GI's such as the US POW prison guard Michael Brech, whose testimony was posted here. You can also go and help the 1.7 million German family members find the remains of their loved one. and take a chovel along. H. Jonat

No. YOU are the one making the claims. It is NOT my responsibility to try to prove it or not. If you have proof, YOU provide it. If not, take this out of the Wikipedia. -- Zoe

Helga -- Hitler was elected legally. There is no doubt to this fact. The Nazis recieved a large enough percentage of the vote that they were initially part of a coalition government. The fact that Hitler was appointed Chancellor and that the actions of his government are unpleasant do not make them less legal. The SPD was legally disbanded AFTER Hitler legally came to power. None of this was forced on the German people or rigged. All of the people here are willing to listen to your accusations, but unfortunately, you never really provide very good sources for us to verify what you've said. clearly no one can just take off and visit the archives or talk to ex-guards -- and I doubt that you have, either. So show us VERIFIABLE sources -- even on the internet. Just remember that your sources also need to be reliable and in their entirety, too -- not just chunks of speeches or even official reports tthat might be taken out of context. Remember -- ther is an awful lot of what is called Holocaust revisionism perpetrated by people who deny the Holocaust and who still claim that there's an international Jewish conspiracy. People like this will pervert the truth whenever they can, all the while making it plausible. We have to make very sure that the wikipedia does not unwittingly become a publisher of this type of "history".JHK

Thanks, JHK. I was just about to respond, but I see you beat me to it. Danny

Yes, and the Communist rulers of all the eastern European countries were all elected legally too

Will get some websites later, but right now I just happened to glance in for a second H. Jonat

I'm sorry, Helga -- what the HELL is your point? If you're saying that communist elections in Eastern Europe were on a par with Hitler's election, that's bullshit. After Communist takeover, there was no attempt to have democratic elections as we understand them in the west -- since ther was only one party, one can hardly expect that those countries would have democratic multi-party elections. Whether you think that's ok (or whether any of us do -- I hardly think any reasonable person believed that people living in the Soviet world had any real political choices or input) is beside the point. The election of Adolf Hitler was free and fair. Period. What you don't seem to understand is that the German electoral system was set up in a way that parties often had to form coalition governments. Hitler certainly did not have a clear majority, but they had a considerable victory which allowed them to have clout in the Reichstag and to ensure Hitler's appointment. There was nothing shifty about it.JHK

I have just removed 8 paragraphs of the speech. This is not the place to put speeches. Also, I removed some of the claims that seemed a little exaggerrated. For instance, 10 thousand pages of testimony with 400 thousand eyewitnesses: that is 40 per page, provided there is nothing else in the documents. With about 30 lines per page, I can only wonder how much evidence they gave. Danny

This James Bacque wrote his book more than ten years ago. Where are the German historians paying any attention to him, pro or con? If there are 1.7 million corpses of starved POWs popping up out of the ground, someone responsible and non-revisionist must have noticed.Ortolan88 18:25 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

This site (the Geman Historical Institute) http://www.ghi-dc.org/bulletinF98/bulletin_f98#Fact lists some German historians who think Bacque is wrong. --rmhermen

Also, what's the source for that Patton quote? Source, and date? Vicki Rosenzweig

New York Times, September 22, 1945, "The Nazi thing is just like a Democrat-Republican fight." Patton was strongly against the denazification policy, believing that to remove all Nazis from government posts would cripple Germany. That's for a Patton article, though, but I will fix the quote meanwhile. Ortolan88 20:28 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

To Orlolan88, I just found a letter on internet : James Bucque Answers a Critic, which appeared in " The Times Literary Suplement" Aug 20, 1993

Bacque states, that Richard Boyland,senoir archivist at US National Archives recently discovered US Army Reports, that plainly state that the "Other Losses" cathegory of prisoners meant death and escapees. (It is known that escapees were shot right away.) Colonel Philip S. Lauden verified. And Bacque 's book was written with help of an Army person (I do not have the book and cannot think of the name right now).

German Red Cross Records of 1947 48 show, that several million people were missing. Everything was handled by Military Occupation Forces, US, GR. Britain and Soviet Union until 1949. German records cannot give answers. Soviet records are all complete. [[3] (http://www.corax.org/revisionism/misc/bacque-letter)]

H. Jonat

Of course several million people were missing. EIGHT million had died in concentration camps, and who knows how many more were killed in battle and bombings? Interesting that the title of your link is "revisionism". -- Zoe

That's not a German historian, that's one guy you can't identify and an Army colonel from somewhere or other. Ortolan88 20:28 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

By the way, Helga, your link doesn't work. -- Zoe

I broke down the link a little. Try http://www.corax.org/revisionism . In its own words, the site is "Dedicated to examining the disparity between "the Holocaust" as it is commonly known, and the actual historiography of "the Holocaust." It is a Holocaust revisionism site linked with the "Institute for Historical Review," which, in turn, is linked to various Nazi apologists. Hmmm ... Danny

More, the institute's director, Mark Weber (himself a former neo-Nazi), is linked to William Pierce, who recently died. Other prominent neo-Nazis active in the movement include Ernst Zundel of Canada. Quite a group actually. Danny

Did you not read the article on the Bacque book, HJ? The old man you defined "other losses" says that Bacque deliberately twisted his meaning. Also, escaped prisoners on both sides were often shot -- that was one of the things allowed for by the Geneva conventions, just as soldiers dressed as civilians could be treated as spies. Sorry, but you can't legitimately include escaped prisoners in your count. Also, you still owe us (all of us who have asked for sources and evidence we can review ourselves) a bunch of answers -- or is this going to be yet another tedious episode where you refuse to do anything to ease the process besides make accusations against people who question your choice of subject and use of sources? JHK

http://www.google.com type in Richard Boylan, senior archivist US National Archives H. Jonat

And up pops a letter to the editor (http://www.corax.org/revisionism/misc/bacque_letter) by, guess who, James Bacque, on that same revisionist web site. Golly, how silly I feel doubting you. Ortolan88 21:13 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

So I typed in Richard Boylan, National Archives, and found a bunch of stuff that says he works at the archives and has been helpful...Please try to offer something useful... your credibility is slipping by the minute, HJ. JHK

I'm at the point now where I'm not really intersted in anything Helga has to say on this subject, so if she wants to make changes to this article (or delete it altogether, which would be my preference), I will see what she does and decide on my own whether or not it needs redacting. -- Zoe

Helga, you've done it again -- the site you linked to is an anti-semitic Holocaust revisionist site. The article by Bacque is a critique of John Keegan, one of the world's foremost military historians. Please go to that website I told you about and READ about how to evaluate sources before you embarass yourself further. Many of us have suggested this to you again and again, but to no avail. It's getting fairly sad. JHK

Like I said above, it's essentially a Liberty Lobby front. Danny

Here's all you need to know about that site, a putrid and disgusting "satire": http://www.corax.org/revisionism/satire/010215charmin

You'd be better off taking my word for it. I don't call things putrid and disgusting lightly. Check the URL for a hint as to the topic and then proceed at your own risk. Ortolan88 21:35 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

I don't think this article stands up. Ortolan88 21:35 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

You just beat me to it. I had written, Yes, why don't we burry it for another 50 years. H. Jonat

The sad thing is, I don't think Helga believes any of this -- I think she's probably a really nice lady who cares about the truth, but is too wrapped up in her own theories to be bothered by things like legitimate research, etc. JHK

Helga - Why did you remove the assertions of Senator Eastland? His quotes were perhaps the best verifiable source of evidence you found. Is it because you are unwilling to make a link between 1940s Germany and a man who hated Jews? If so, the irony would only be surpassed by your pitifulness. Olof

Olof, no I had moved it to Dwight Eisenhower, from where it was removed by Danny . H. Jonat

But you wrote on this page "I removed controversial Senator Eastland of Mississippi." Furthermore, I can't find any part of the Eisenhower page history which contains the Eastland comments, so I doubt that Danny removed them. [[User:Olof|Olof]

Olof, sorry I had glanced and just read senator, while Danny had just removed the section with the senator Homer E. Capehart from Dwight Eisenhower.

You are actually looking for senator Eastland. That you can find on History: July 31 16:09, removed by me.

I had meant to delete this part with the Buscque quote, which someone other than me had put in. We had yesterday agreed to take controversial people out. I have tried to take Buscque out from the Dwight Eisenhower article several times, but I guess Danny likes him to be in (he keeps putting it back).

This is getting muddled, but I am definately not sticking my head in the sand as you seem to think. H. Jonat

I put him in because he is the only source you can give. By the way, why did you just remove Slr's contribution to the talk page, Helga? Danny

Danny, I did not remove any comment by Rubenstein, I just looked for it , but cannot find anything, or else i would submit it. Rubenstein, please re-enter your comment.

Here they are, for what they are worth -- I don't know what happened.

Okay, I thought I could follow these exchanges as a relatively disinterest observer. But I finally checked out the web-site that is the source of one of the cited documents making the allegations against the occupying powers in general and Eisenhower in particular.

Did you know that one of the articles at the website is on "the WTC demolition?" Yes, it argues that there was no Arab involvement in the destruction of the WTC; that it was a deliberate demolition executed by Americans. What is the proof? Because the people at this website cannot believe that it could have been otherwise.

I find the article by Bacque to make effectively the same argument. It is written as a sort of mystery-story (in other words, the narrative structure is the author slowly discovering more and more facts that lead him to a certain conclusion) which has some emotional effect but is not, to my way of thinking, at all convincing. The author repeatedly asserts that "documents prove" genocide, or something like it. In my experience, documents do help prove things, but what they prove is often not obvious. Documents, especially the ones cited here, are written under very complex circumstances and seldom can be taken at face value.

Helga raises two questions: How many Germans died under Allied occupation, and why did they die? These are reasonable questions, but the answers are not evident, and contemporary documents need to be analyzed and interpreted in context. The article cited does not do that.

I imagine that what I am writing will be obvious to everyone out there save one. Sorry. Slrubenstein

My source has not been Buscque, someone else put his name in the article.

I had removed it several times. I am just stating, that there were 1.8 mill German POW's missing plus 1.6 mill. German civilians missing during the administration by Eisenhower and the Allied Control Council from May 8, 1945 till the end of 1947. Period. That Buscue has searched records and has brought that to light now, has nothing to do with the facts as they were recorded and stated by the German Historical Institute GHI and Bundesrepublik (on the website I listed) in 1947. H. Jonat

In 1998 the German Historical Institute says that 1 million POW's are not missing and that Bacque's work is awful. http://www.ghi-dc.org/bulletinF98/bulletin_f98#Fact --rmhermen

rmhermen,

just for the record, the German Historical Institute is located in Washington DC H. Jonat

And it is the source you quoted. Which does not support but denies your accusation. Including these professors: Wilfried Mausbach (GHI), Hans-Jürgen Schröder (University of Giessen), Christof Strauß (University of Heidelberg),

who sure aren't Americans. This is a dead issue, Helga - give it up. --rmhermen

Helga & rmhermen, I put in James Bacque because the first 'pedia accusation of Eisenhower-caused genocide appeared to have been taken, point by point, from an Bacque article I found on the web. I like to cite sources, because it helps the reader evaluate the relibility of claims. I think Bacque is incorrect, and I think that readers who follow the link to his article will quickly realize that Bacque is incorrect. (For those who are slow, there's always Stephen Ambrose; perhaps I should add more of Ambrose's rebuttal to this article.) --Ed Poor

If H. Jonat wasn't quoting Bacque, quite possible, because she doesn't spell his name right, then she wasn't quoting anybody at all except herself and her nasty web sites. Sorry H. Jonat, but we folks have been very courteous and forbearing, giving the benefit of the doubt, looking at your sources, and the article doesn't stand up. Maybe it happened, there were lots of people killed in huge batches in the 20th century, innocent civilians, Russian kulaks, Polish army officers, Rwandans, soldiers on the Western front, citizens of Dresden, citizens of Nanking, Japanese POWs and slave laborers, German POWs starved to death by the Russians, who declared them to have no status at all and simply locked them up to die, rerurning Russian POWs who were killed by their own country because they had seen too much of "the good life" as German POWs, citizens of Tokyo and two other Japanese cities, and millions more. Some of these were killed by people I consider my "enemies", some of these were killed by people I consider "on my side", but it's all horrible and unjustified to me, and maybe Eisenhower killed German POWs too, but there is evidence for all the other instances I mention, but we are still waiting for your evidence on this one.

I say boil it down to a paragraph or two and move along, pending actual evidence.Ortolan88 13:04 Aug 2, 2002 (PDT)

Better to keep it in, as a prime example of historical revisionism or perhas even of a hoax. It reminds me of Bart Testa's article "Making crime seem natural", which analyzed a 5-part series of newspaper articles that purported to chronicle the seduction, brainwashing and ultimate rescue of a young Canadian man from the clutches of the "Moon cult". Testa found all the dramatic elements which Slrubenstein began alluding to. (Sorry, the article isn't on line; it's a chapter in a book I read not long after joining the Unification Church.) *sigh* As the poet says, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." --Ed Poor

I just read the quote from the Capehart speech. It says nothing about a German famine. It is about a Europe-wide famine which Helga seems to claim didn't happen. And no where does it mention German POW's. --rmhermen

rmhermen , Read Dwight Eisenhower and Marshall Plan

Mr. President, the cynical and savage repudiation of these solemn declarations (It is not the intention of the Allies to destroy or enslave the German people) ,which has resulted in a major catastrophe, cannot be explained in terms of ignorance or incompetence. This repudiation, not only of the Potsdam Declaration, but also of every law of God and men, has been deliberately engineered with such a malevolent cunning, and with such diabolical skill, that the American people themselves have been caught in an international death trap.... For nine months now this administration has been carrying on a deliberate policy of mass starvation without any distinction between the innocent and the helpless and the guilty alike... The first issue has been and continues to be purely humanitarian. This vicious clique within this administration that has been responsible for the policies and practices which have made a madhouse of central Europe has not only betrayed our American principles, but they continue to betray the GIs who have suffered and died, and they continue to betray the American GIs who have to continue their dirty work for them." The senator also stated: "The fact can no longer be supprssed, namely, the fact that it has been and continues to be, the deliberate policy of a confidential and conspiratorial clique within the policy-making corcles of this government to draw and quarter a nation now reduced to abject misery."(referring to the Four sectors of military occupation government of German.

I had posted the senator's comments early on in the Eisenhower debate, but it was removed and changed around. It was not only the POW's who were (alledged deliberately) starved. H. Jonat

I told you I read it -- it still doesn't say anything about Americans deliberately starving German POW's. If you bothered to read any of the rebutals of Bacque work, you would have seen that displaced person in France were being fed the same ration as German POW's or German civilians. Just because one American senator said so doesn't make it true. --rmhermen

For example, Helga, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconson claimed to have a list of the names of those people in government who were communists. He even waved it in the air so the press could see that he had it. His allegations caused one of the most egregious offenses against American civil liberties in US history -- and there was no list at the time McCarthy claimed to have it!!! JHK

German POWs were fed the same rations that the US Army was providing to the civilian population.

Aren't the relevant conventions that you have to feed POWs the same rations as you feed your own soldiers? Or do they postdate WW2? Curiosity only... Martin 23:52 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The Geneva Conventions were in effect at this time. Pizza Puzzle

It is POV to imply that Bacque is "not a professional historian"; he makes money writing about history, he IS a professional historian. It is also POV to state that he is a "historical revionist" - that is a conntoted term of disparagement and should be attributed to somebody, such as Ambrose.Pizza Puzzle

I was just watching a WWII film and saw a column of German POWs that went for miles; as always when I see such footage, I do wonder what happaned to all those POWs. Although I havent taken any effort to look at this topic, I find it strange that I have never found any information on the treatment of German POWs, in continental Europe, during the war. All I have found are a couple of brief references to POW camps in Wisconsin and England. Pizza Puzzle

When I was stationed in the Air Force in Germany (way too many years ago), my roommate and I went into a local gasthaus where there was a table where a group of the local regulars sat. While my roommate and I were there, one of the elderly locals got up and walked past where we were sitting. On his way back, he stopped and sat down next to us. He could tell from our military haircuts that we were Americans, and he said, "America! I love America! It is my second home! I was a prisoner of war in Texas!" :) RickK 00:02 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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