Raymond J. Christman Jr.

Last year I had the honor of meeting this man.

'I was one of the lucky ones, alive by a second'

http://www.newsday.com/topic/all-raymondchristman1,0,3488525.story

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/all-raymondchristman2,0,7107163.story

The 84-year-old Nazareth resident recalls the Battle of the Bulge and his ordeal as a prisoner of war. His story begins as he joins Company A, 109th Infantry Regiment, in Germany's Hürtgen Forest.

Go read his story.

Think of this part the next time you think you have it rough:

There must've been 25 to 30 of us left. The Germans put us in this warehouse. We had no water, but there was a drip coming down from the roof all the way to the floor, but you couldn't catch it there. I took my helmet and crawled up the wooden beams and I sat up there and caught the drip in my helmet and handed it down for the guys.

One thing the Germans didn't take away from me was my pocket New Testament. While I was sitting up there, I looked through the book and found the Christmas story, Luke. And I read it out loud, sitting up there catching water. Whether anybody listened to me, I don't know.

We spent that night in the warehouse, and the next day was Christmas. Something happened that morning, and I can't believe it yet.The Germans said we'd have to walk again to the next train station, so they lined us up to start walking. And some German civilians came up to us and gave us each four or five crackers with little cups of honey to dip them in for a Christmas present. The soldiers let them do it.