70th Anniversary Bastogne Memorial March

On Friday December 12th, we headed to Bastogne Belgium, this is the site of the battle of the bulge.  We have been wanting to do this since we have arrived and finally were able to do it. 

 

We arrived on Friday night to Bastogne for a little dinner.  The town was already in full swing.  This was one of the static displays in town.  On the building behind this they played a movie of different photos of the battle.

 

The boys playing some Pokeman before our dinner.  We headed back to our apartment  after this since we were going to have an early morning.

 

We were up and out of the house by 7 am to get into town and registers for the memorial march.  There were three different lengths, 8km, 12km, and 20 km.  We decided to do the shortest one since that was already 5 miles.  Here we are all dressed up in layers ready for the walk..  We were told it was going to snow so we wanted to make sure we were going to be warm enough.

 

This is the starting point of all three walks.  You can see there are all different militaries here doing the march.

 

 

They had many old vehicles from the war around the town and driving.  It was really cool!!!!

 

The boys were ready for the march - starting off before it was really light.  They were good to go at this point since it was the beginning and they were excited.

 

We were fortunate to be able to meet up with our good friends the Stankovichs and the Warners.  Here are the four boys.

 

We now are off the pavement and it was muddy, it rained the night before and it was trying to snow on us.  It was really cold, it actually was getting colder the later in the day.

 

 

Did I say it was cold?!?  Because I wouldn't be wearing a skirt or a kilt for that matter.

 

Here are two that dressed up in the uniforms of the time period.  There were a lot of them!

 

I gave David the big umbrella so he could keep our stuff dry in the backpack, it helped keep him dry as well.  You can see him walking there with Michael beside him.

 

Here I am walking with Kellee - it was nice to have people to talk to during the walk.  As you can see it was really starting to snow.

 

Kellee took some great black and white photos during  the march.  Here are two "soldiers" taking a break.  It makes you think you were back  during the war, minus the bombs and bullets going off.

 

Here are the signs we followed on the route.  The blue arrow is the 8km on.

 

They were all really good sports letting people take pictures of them.

 

Decided to take a break from the snow and walk with  my husband!

 

 

It was beautiful countryside we were walking through and I love seeing the snow on it.

 

At the halfway point they had re-enactments set up.  Here Michael is with an old jeep.  By this point both boys were tired and complaining.  This was a good place for a little break and look around.

 

AJ next to the vehicles, he was smart and had the umbrella to keep some of the snow off of him.

 

The boys like this jeep because of the machine gun on top.

 

Here is a machine gun nest with their tents behind it.

 

This one would be harder to see the way they have it camouflaged.

 

Like I said, they go all out.  These guys sleep out here in the cold and hunker down in their fox holes.

 

This states that two unknown American soldiers died at this spot.

 

The symbol on the back of this truck is the Seabees symbol.  That is the unit that David's dad and brother were in during their time in the navy.

 

I love the smile that Kellee caught on this "medic."

 

Like I was saying it almost feels like you were there.

 

Looking at photos actually taken during the war.

 

 

They had some hot chocolate, beer, gluwhien, brats, etc at the halfway point.  AJ enjoying a little hot chocolate trying to warm up a little bit.

 

Here was another "soldier" in their tent.  That was a stove outside his tent.

 

I was actually really glad it was snowing during this march.  It made it much more like the conditions that they fought in.  The boys were complaining so much at this point.  I told them they might be cold and tired, but think about those soldiers that were out here for a month with no fire, food, slept in the mud.  Think about how they felt.  It was a good lesson for the boys.  One that the didn't feel like learning at this time.  :-)

 

As we were getting close to the end and back into Bastogne, a full entourage of vehicles drove past us.

 

I think about traveling in these trucks and how cold it would be in winter months.

 

Check out the boots, they are really particular about getting things authentic down to the last item.

 

The march ended at the Bastogne Barracks.

 

The boys inside the barracks by one of the big guns!!!!

 

They even set up tents inside the barracks - you can see a "nurse" in the mix as well.

 

You can see the snow is sticking.  The boys were having fun throwing snowballs at each other along the route.  The only problem is instead of using their gloves, they decided to use their sleeves of their sweatshirts which of course made them wetter, colder and more miserable.  They continued to use their sleeves even after I told them to stop.  Weird.

 

Cool motorcycle running around the barracks.

 

I liked the nickname given to this truck - old scrap!!!

 

A group standing around chatting.

 

On the way to the end of the route there were about three different museums that we could go in and check out the vehicles on display.  The boys were glad to get in out of the cold.  AJ is definitely my museum kid.  He loves them and reads about everything.  You can see him reading about this T980 Diamond M20 tank transporter with M9 trailer.  This was a US vehicle.  They had all different countries' vehicles in these museums. 

 

Michael on the other hand was happy just sitting on the bench, relaxing and being silly with Joey.

 

Many of the vehicles had fun things on the side of them.  This one said combat camel.  It is a US Medium Tank M47-Patton.  It took a crew of 5 to run it.

 

AJ like this one because it looked like a lion and we are lions!!!

 

 

This was a battery for a Ioseph Stalin III Heavy tank - it was a Russian tank.  I can't believe how big they were!

 

This was one of the coolest tank I thought - it was so tiny - you can see the people standing a ways behind it!

 

How many times can you say that you have seen a WWII tank driving on the roads.  I think this was one of the boys favorite parts!

 

We finally made it to the end point.  We were given a certificate and there were brats to buy.  So we decided to eat some lunch because we were all starving.  The boys were so hungry, each one ate two brats!!  Here the boys are trying to warm up and dry off.  It worked a little bit, but they weren't dry at all.  What was really funny is as we went into town Michael asked when we were going to have lunch.  I told him we already ate lunch.  He told me that those two big brats were not lunch, they were a snack!!  Oh boy, what am I going to do?!?

 

Then we headed into town.  There was a parade and throwing of nuts that we were going to see.  All the boys really wanted to do was go back tot he apartment, dry off and play their tablets, but we weren't done with our forced family fun yet!  One thing we noticed is that they really love Americans here.  That is not the case in most of Europe, but you can really tell that they do.  They were all extremely friendly!

 

I am not sure if you know the story behind nuts.  When the 101st airborne were surrounded by the German army in Bastogne, there was a message sent to the American commanding officer General McAuliffe to surrender.  His message back to the German army  was "Nuts."  Basically telling him they were nuts to think they were going to surrender.

 

 

The parade finally started, the boys were still complaining, here is the American military in the parade.

 

 

This was my favorite part of the parade, these were veterans that actually fought right here in the battle of the bulge.  It was very humbling and so very cool!!

 

So after the parade we headed up to check out what was in town, etc.  We were waiting for the throwing of the nuts.  It was supposed to be a really big deal.  By this time the boys complaining hit an all time high.  I was done.  But we had this one last thing to check out.  So as we were standing there and the time was getting closer, we started getting packed in like sardines.  The boys couldn't see anything, we kept them tight in the middle of us.  We literally could not move a muscle.  One of our friends is claustrophobic so we decided to try and get out of the crowd, there was absolutely no way.  We couldn't move even an inch.  It was crazy.  And it took FOREVER for them to throw the nuts.  Even I was done and getting cold just standing there.  But it is a big thing there.  Up on the balcony is the King and Queen of Belgium.  They had many a dignitary throw out nuts, including American ones.  When it was finally over, we had to find our group again.  Then we headed off to find something to eat.  It ended up being harder than we thought.  The first two restaurants we tried were closed.  So then we decided to go back to their hotel and eat there.

 

When we got there at 6 pm we found out that it didn't open until 6:30 pm.  We couldn't win for losing.  Luckily the boys were happy because they were able to pay their tablets.

 

Here Gina, Kellee and I were happy as well because we had some Moose Milk.  If you have never had Moose Milk before you are missing out.  It is a Canadian drink that I have no idea what is in it, but it is yummy!!  We were finally able to go in for dinner and it was a great time with friends!!!  I am sure the restaurant was glad when the loud Americans left.  We headed our way back to the apartment for some sleep before we headed back into Bastogne for some more history lesson the next day.