Merry Christmas! We drove from Metz to Paris. Paris for Christmas Day sounded delightful…
Along the way, we stopped at the place made famous by Sergeant York in The Great War. My dad, Stewart Boone, felt that his life story was very similar to the life story of Alvin York. Both started poor, were patriotic, Christian, and had a loving family.
In 2017, we even spent Veterans Day at Sgt. Alvin C. York State Historic Park in Pall Mall, TN, with the descendants of Alvin York. And, of course, Stewart took his trumpet. They had a fun sing-along.
Here is why this was a Christmas miracle:
- Christmas Day. Everything is closed. Will someone deliver us? Did I mention that we were out in the middle of nowhere?
- The car manual was in French. We located a number in our Hertz documents to call for road side service.
- We had sketchy cell service. Rob’s cell was not picking up a signal. Mine was … barely.
- We were unable to provide the closest street since we were off road.
- We took a screenshot of where we were. See below.
Well, to say the least, it was soon to be dark. Rob gave a hard NO to my request to continue to explore the Sgt. York hiking trail by car, but all was not lost!!
Speaking of lost, we saw the movie, The Lost Battalion, which occurred in the same vicinity and about the same time as Sargeant York’s battle. (This excellent movie was freely accessed on youtube.)
Christmas 1914 The Great War
The war was not all over by Christmas as anticipated. Exposed to the winter weather and in primitive trenches, men at the Front often felt more connected with the enemy across the lines than with the people having a relatively comfortable time of things back home. The Christmas gifts handed out in each army did little to help. In many places along the Front there were spontaneous Christmas ceasefires as soldiers and officers stopped fighting for a while. And in some places, they sang carols, buried their dead and kicked a ball around together.
Here is a first person account:
“First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words Adeste Fideles. And I thought, well, this is really a most extraordinary thing – two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.”
Christmas 1944 World War II
The war was not all over by Christmas as anticipated. Soldiers like Stewart were freezing, hungry, tired, and crouched in a foxhole thinking of home.
The song White Christmas had just come out and was made famous by Bing Crosby. All of the soldiers were dreaming of the “Christmases that they used to know”…Not this! And to this day, White Christmas brings a tear to the eyes of WWII veterans who remember death, destruction and an eagerness to be home … not here!
Christmas 2024 80th Battle of the Bulge Anniversary Tour
Stewart survived that terrible Christmas in 1944 and enjoyed 58 more Christmases with family and friends … just like the ones he used to know. I was there for many of them … just like the ones that he dreamed about in 1944.
However, others left their hopes and dreams on that battlefield.
I would like you to think, or better, to dream of what you plan on doing later today. What are you going to eat for dinner? What will you do tomorrow? What are your future plans for education, beginning a family, doing your best at school, work or at home? Getting that super job, buying that first home, holding that grandchild for the first time? Can you feel the positive excitement that these things give us?
Stewart vowed to live big hopes and big dreams such as these to honor those soldiers. He would have wanted them to do the same. To do otherwise does a disservice to those brave, scared young men who sacrificed it all for those who walked out of that forest.
Stewart knows that he was lucky. He felt the hand of Providence. He said would serve the Christ child all the many remaining days of his life … and he did!!
Now he is serving in heaven. I like to think that he is in a heavenly band … with his trumpet in hand.
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