My wife found an interesting article in the recent April/May issue of AARP: The Magazine, and left it at my place on the dining room table.

“The Buddy I’ll Never Forget” was a feature article of five short stories honoring the men and women who served, those who serve today and the friendships they forged in war.

The author, Staff Sergeant Les Schrenk, is 102 years young and living in Bloomington, Minnesota. He was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress (H) bomber named “Pot o’ Gold” with the Eighth Air Force’s 92nd Bombardment Group, 327th Squadron. The aircraft was shot down following bombing their target on February 22, 1944, and he became a POW at Stalag IV in Poland along with several of his flight crew.

What follows in Schrenk’s article is his bonding under very trying circumstances with four fellow air men who shared a blanket and their warmth to survive a Death March from Stalag IV to Germany during a brutal winter, an arduous journey that lasted 86 days until liberation.