"I'm the 82nd Airborne"

The other day I was watching a documentary about the Battle of the Bulge with my twelve year old. I told about a couple of men I knew that had been there. We spoke of the chaos and the disorganization and how whether the line held in a particular area often depended on the actions of single soldiers making the decision to stand or flee. I had heard a great story relating an incident in that battle and couldn't quite recall the details.

I had heard it told on the Australian ABC Radio years ago. I went back and found it here.

Chris Bullock: Colonel Grossman concluded with a story from World War II, when Americans were retreating in terror through a forest, pursued by Nazi SS. Reserve troops and paratroopers were called in to stop the Nazi advance under very difficult conditions.

David Grossman: And this is a true story. There was a photographer there, and a reporter there, and what happened was this. There's one American tank, 30 tons of death, fleeing down the road, and this one lonely paratrooper walks out in the middle of the road. And he's got hollow, sunken eyes, three days growth of beard; an M1 dangling from his hand and a bazooka on his shoulder and he walks up and he stops the tank and looks at the tank commander and he says, 'Buddy, are you looking for a safe place?' The guy says, 'Yes.' He says, 'Then get behind me because I'm the 82nd Airborne Division and this is as far as the bastards are going to get.'