Tempest in a Teapot

This past weekend, J & I went down to Bastogne, Belgium to participate in the Bastogne Historic Walk. It occurs every December to honor the memory of all those lost during the Battle of the Bulge. If you’ve seen Band of Brothers, you know where we were. It was a cold day, but considering this is the warmest winter Europe has had in years, I hardly have anything to complain about.

After the walk we headed back into Bastogne for the afternoon parade. The town was full of Dutch and Belgians dressed up as reenactors for the battle. I can only compare it to a civil war type reenactment in the US. The reenactors are very proud of their uniforms – they are portraying actual British or American units that fought in the area. There were lots of old military vehicles as well.

The Battle of the Bulge actually began on 16 December 1944. It was a final push by the Naz*s to break through Allied lines. It was a terrible winter that year – bitter, bitter cold. With the final attack launched by the Germans, Bastogne was cut off and besieged. The Germans demanded surrender. What happened next is now a part of legend…

“When General Anthony McAuliffe was awakened by a German invitation to surrender, he gave a reply of annoyance that has been variously reported and was probably unprintable. There is no disagreement, however, as to what he wrote on the paper delivered to the Germans: “NUTS!” That reply had to be explained, both to the Germans and to non-American Allies”(wikipedia)

The Belgians LOVE Gen. McAuliffe. His statue is up in the town square and he is held in very high regard here, due to his refusal to surrender the city. In his honor, after the parade around town, the city council gets up on the balcony at town hall and throw nuts at the crowd. People go crazy. It. is. awesome. We had great fun being part of it. Bastogne is a wonderful little town – we had great food and really enjoyed our weekend.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 1:59 pm and is filed under Life Abroad, Travel, USAF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.