Today is D-Day, June 6, a day to remember. A tribute to Steve Gilliard, who would have reminded us of this today.
Hal Baumgarten was 18 when he was drafted and left his home in the Bronx to fight the Germans in Normandy. An NYU student, he had a chance for a college deferment, but he turned it down.
On the night before the invasion, 63 years ago today, on the troop ship he wrote his last letter home before boarding the landing craft.
I drew this big Star of David on my field jacket, with the "Bronx, New York," underneath it. It was my act of defiance. I didn't expect to live through it. I wrote home to my sister, Ethel, who lived in a two-family house with my folks, that when the telegram comes, run down and get the telegram first and break the news gently. I had made up my mind I wasn't coming back.
His mission was to storm Omaha Beach.
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