Greenwich Resident Grateful For Freedom, Veterans
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This submission comes from Paula Flaherty in Greenwich.
What are you thankful for?
Our Freedom, that our veterans paid for, including my Father, who in WW2 was at Normandy day 7, also served at the Nuremberg Trials, and was on General Eisenhower's ECAD (European Civil Affairs Division) where my Dad acted in many cities throughout Europe as temporary mayor for the cleanup and reconstruction of such war ravaged cities. Also including my Dad's father's brother, my great uncle, who was a Captain and MD in the MORC (Medical Officer Reserve Corp.) during WW1, where he was stationed at a camp hospital next to the Aerodrome in Romarantin France performing countless surgeries patching wounded soldiers together. A wire from was intercepted that the Germans planned to gas the US and Allied soldiers in the trenches at the Western Front. My Great Uncle Paul volunteered drive all night to deliver gas masks by early morning up to the trenches at the Front and train the soldiers how to use them. On the way back the top heavy Model T ambulance truck that he was driving avoided a small boy wandering on the military road, swerved, the vehicle rolled over and he was mortally wounded with a hepatic avulsion and tore vital organs. His colleagues in the surgical theatre operated in vain trying to save him, to no avail. Captain Paul E Betowski MD died on July 2, 1918, just 4 months before the armistice.
