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MSN.com
For one World
War II veteran, a day to give thanks for ‘one more sunrise’
The Washington Post
T. Rees Shapiro
On Thanksgiving Day in 1944, Dick Graff opened his Army-issue mess kit
and took comfort in his turkey and mashed potatoes, a welcome respite
from the brutal battlefront near Weisweiler, Germany.
As a soldier with the 104th Infantry Division, the 20-year-old who grew
up on a hog and cattle farm in Iowa was grateful for the hot meal a
world away. Things had changed in the few weeks since he had narrowly
survived his first combat experience.
The night mission had called for Graff and the other U.S. troops in his
unit to maneuver through a forest, and as they moved, German artillery
shells began to quake the earth around him. The bombardment seemed
endless. The Army had trained him how to fight and how to shoot machine
guns, but the terror of facing enemy fire was like nothing he could
have imagined.
“I was not sure I was going to live until morning,” Graff said in an
interview this week at his home in Ashburn, Va. “I prayed to God for
one more sunrise...
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