Some time ago, I was involved in the making of an exciting documentary on the Battle of the Bulge. Belgian television maker Chris Michel interviewed a dozen veterans who had traveled to Bastogne with Forever Young, an American wish organization that had paid for the men’s travel to Europe. Second from left in this picture can be seen 89-year-old Jesse Davis, a former PFC of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. He is posing at the foot of the towering Mardasson Memorial at no more than a stone’s throw from the world-class Bastogne War Museum. “This is,” marveled Jesse’s awestruck grandson, the young man on the right, “as close as I can get to history.” “It is,” he stressed, “the proudest time of my life.”
