Patton was controversial, profane, loved and hated, but most of all, successful. As far as I m concerned says Worley, he was the greatest soldier this country ever had. Patton s army rolled across France in the summer of 1944, helped win the Battle of the Bulge in December of that year, was the first Allied Army to cross the Rhine River into Germany and in the process covered more territory quicker than any army in the history of the world.
Along the way, Worley saw the worst of war. The ground was littered with dead bodies. We saw people with their heads cut off, their legs blown off, he said.
The retired postman goes on to talk of an emotion most of us can t imagine. I was scared to death, terrified. Anybody who s ever been to a war and says he wasn t afraid is either the biggest liar or the bravest man I ve ever known.
But even that: the constant fear, the death of friends and destruction on a massive scale, was not the worst. That came near the end, in May of 1945, when Patton s army liberated the German death camp at Mauthausen in Austria. It was a place where thousands died.
After we got over the shock of the thing, Worley said, we wondered how anybody could be that cruel. Patton was controversial, profane, loved and hated, but most of all, successful.
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