Truck Accident

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	This is a sad story. The Prop&Rotor Team had this Deuce-and-a-half that we were responsible for. The truck was is beautiful condition (as Army trucks go). We had completely repainted the truck. New canvas, seats and mirrors. Just perfect. A truck was needed for a trip to Frankfurt and ours was taken by two young fellows. On the way back to the base, the two young men got drunk. They collided with a Volkswagen, pushing it off the road. The Deuce-and-a-half then proceeded to roll on top of the Volkswagen crushing the car to a height of about a foot. The two occupants in the car were killed.

The two people killed were a mother and daughter. To add to the sadness, the father had been killed by artillery fire by Americans at the end of WWII. The U.S. Army suffered a tremendous black eye from the event and a lot of PR work was performed to lower the temperature of the community. The Germans wanted to try the two for drunk driving. The U.S. Army did the two a favor by quickly court marshalling them and sending them to Leavenworth for 20 years. I say "favor" because conviction and imprisonment by the Germans would be far more severe. It would be more like a life sentence in horrible conditions. The Germans did not have the same attitude towards inmates like in American prisons. I saw the two just before they left. One was nineteen and the other eighteen and their lives were already screwed up for most of the rest of it. The sadness on their faces shook me.