Uncle Theo, my father's younger brother, was my favorite uncle growing up. He owned a couple of bars in Dallas where he would give me all the free potato chips I wanted. But more than that, he was just plain interesting. He had been a soldier in the great World War II, which wasn't all that far in the past when I was a child.
Uncle Theo had served with General Patton in North Africa and Sicily as a medic with the Second Armored Division ("Hell on Wheels") and later took part in the invasion of Normandy, France, where he waded ashore on D-Day+1.
Once when my brother and I stayed with him, he showed us the bullet scars in his neck and back and told us stories of skies lit up with tracers, flaming planes falling from the sky, and German soldiers killed or captured. But we were really too young to understand that war wasn't like in the movies. It was nasty business.
There is a famous Life Magazine photograph that shows several dead American soldiers lying on Omaha Beach, with a medic crouched over them. The medic was Uncle Theo.
Uncle Theo won both the Silver Star and the Bronze Star in France, and finally the Purple Heart which sent him home, causing him to miss the Battle of the Bulge. Years later, after Uncle Theo had joined his comrades on the other side, we received some of his belongings. They included a black Nazi helmet, with an emblem of an eagle sitting on a swastika; several German medals and wallets, complete with German family photographs and regiment photographs, and identification papers; three rifle bullets, one of which was loaded with a wooden bullet painted red; and German and French money. I still have most of these artifacts, carefully preserved. But the ones I treasure the most are the typed pages, brown with age, from the U.S. Command that describes my uncle's heroic exploits that earned him his medals. Here is the one for the Silver Star:
Headquarters of the 2nd Armored Division
Office of the Division Commander, 7 September 1944
The Silver Star medal is awared to Private First Class Theo Chomper
Citation
At approximately 0800, 29 July, 1944, a huge German armored column engaged Pfc Chomper's company in battle. Courageously disregarding enemy and friendly artillery, mortar and small arms fire, Pfc Chomper gave medical aid to wounded of his platoon and an attached tank platoon. He remained at the task alone until help arrived, then aided with the evacuation of the wounded. Pfc Chomper is credited with saving many lives with his prompt aid during the heat of battle.
by command of Major General Brooks
