*     *     *     *     * 

     On the heels of my father’s death, I acquired another titanic jolt.  Upon getting 

with his accountant, I was respectfully informed that my mother and I were flat broke. 

After years of living the great American dream solely on credit, my father left nothing 

behind in the way of any tangible assets or an inheritance; only a mountain of debt.  

Not having the capital to complete my flight training, I could kiss aviation goodbye 

as a career.

     On this dreary note, dear reader, there did occur one ray of financial sunshine – 

emanating from an extremely unusual direction.

     I can’t say in actuality that my mother was clairvoyant; even so she did have a 

certain gift along these lines.  As a kid growing up, I’d be sitting in a room with her, 

and she’d suddenly move to the telephone and pick it up. There was always 

someone  at the other end attempting to call her.  The phone wouldn’t ring once. She 

called it one of her “hunches.”  Mom fought this ability though, since the church she 

buried herself in condemned her talent as being demonic.

     Despite this impediment, Mother got one of her “hunches” that quite literally 

saved our collective asses.  About a month before my father’s demise, a door-to-

door  insurance agent appeared on our front porch.  He was thirty, hailed from 

Czechoslovakia, spoke with a thick accent, had recently immigrated here and this

insurance gig was his first job in the States.  On a “hunch,” my mother purchased a 

ten thousand dollar life insurance policy on Dad.

     So this means Mom and I are out of the financially-strapped woods.  Right?  Not 

so fast, dear reader. Remember, this is America.

     Upon supplying proof of death, “our Czech” insurance agent filed a claim with his 

insurance company, who immediately rejected it; stating my father had committed 

“suicide.”

     Oh come on, dear reader, it was only for ten grand. This is chump change.

     “Our Czech” insurance agent hit the roof; quitting his job, and filing a complaint 

against his employer with a California watchdog insurance organization.  Under

pressure from this organization, the insurance company only turned loose $3,500; 

with the excuse they wanted to investigate our claim further.  Six months after this 

“our Czech” went to bat again, and got us another $3,500.

     Upon each occasion I split the money with Mother.  I not only completed my flight 

training - ultimately going to work as a fixed-wing Flight Instructor - but also got my 

Helicopter Commercial and Helicopter Flight Instructor’s add-on ratings. Between my 

grandmother’s social security, my mother teaching voice lessons and my flight pay, 

we kept food on the table and a roof over our heads.

          The Cessna 150, I instructed in, at Valley Pilots Flying Service, Van Nuys Airport.

     The Bell 47-D1, I instructed in, at The Helicopter Center, Van Nuys Airport.

     All thanks to Mom’s “hunch,” and this Czech showing up at our front door.

     So indulge me, dear reader.  Why would this Czech immigrant throwaway his first 

job in the States to help us out?  That in itself is an amazing story:

     In the spring of 1945 “my Czech” was eleven-years-old, and one morning he and 

his brother – who was nine – woke up in the barracks of a Nazi slave labor camp and 

realized they were in a world of trouble.  Why?  Because it was late, and the guards 

hadn’t arrived yet to take them to work.  It wasn’t the normal routine; making them

exceedingly afraid.

     Eighteen months previously they were separated from their parents and placed in 

this labor camp, which manufactured artillery ammunition.  Since their hands were 

small, the Nazis used children to polish the insides of artillery shell casings.

     The kids used for slave labor by the Nazis.

     The 75 mm artillery shells the kids polished.

     Observing children and adults being literally worked to death – or starved, beaten, 

shot and hung - convinced the Czech and his brother they were residing in hell. And 

it was far worse than anything the village priest had warned then about.

     The camp was guarded by the Waffen-SS.

     Who would later be tried for war crimes.

      Around noon – from hunger and thirst – the inhabitants of the boys’ barracks 

became desperate. Upon knocking out a couple of rotten boards, the building began 

hemorrhaging children.  The Czech and his brother hung back; waiting to see if any 

of these kids were shot by the guards.  But nothing happened.  At length 

they scrambled out also and, much to their astonishment, discovered the camp was 

wide open and totally devoid of sentries.  The Nazis had fled!

          The kids barracks.

      As if in a dream, both scrawny little boys stumbled out of that camp hand in 

hand; beginning the long walk home in their bare feet.

     Late in the afternoon of that same day, something really big came rumbling down 

the dirt road they were on; kicking up a mountain of dust.  Terrified, the Czech and

his brother jumped into a ditch to hide in the weeds.

     Gen. George S. Patton.

     The hard-charging U.S. Army General that really got around.

          Patton’s 3rd Army invading Czechoslovakia.

      It turned out to be an American convoy; the Czech recognized white stars painted 

on the olive-drab skin of jeeps, trucks, half-tracks and tanks rumbling past them.  The

noise was deafening; the boys held each other and trembled in the weeds - not 

knowing that Patton’s Third Army had stumbled upon them.

     In time the convoy clattered to a halt due to the MPs - a quarter-mile down the 

road - directing conflicting traffic at a crossroads.

 

 

        The U.S. Army M4 Sherman Tank.

    

      Exasperated at the hold up a sergeant - in the turret of an M4 Sherman tank - 

fished out another peach from a can with his KA-BAR knife.  He wore a beat up, 

rubberized/leather Tanker Helmet with goggles, headset and throat mike, plus a 

combat Tanker Jacket – that had seen better days - and sported a ten-day beard.

He was also caked in road dust, which didn’t improve his disposition.

     While munching on his peach, out of boredom, the sergeant proceeded to 

examine his surroundings. That’s when he zeroed in on the two children clothed in 

filthy, concentration camp rags - bearing the infamous, vertical black stripes – with 

hollow, empty eyes, too large for their underfed bodies, staring up at him.The 

sergeant observed absolute terror in those children’s eyes...and it made this grizzled, 

combat veteran weep.

     He dumped the peach back into the can, wiped his eyes, climbed down the side 

of his tank, and approached the boys with his can of peaches and drawn knife.

     Both of the boys commenced to cry bitterly at his approach; the Czech gripped 

his skeleton of a younger brother, and kissed him goodbye.

     You see, dear reader, up to this point in their young, brief lives these boys had 

only associated with Waffen-SS soldiers.  In their minds, this American soldier was

coming to slit their throats with his knife.  After all, they had seen the SS do this. 

That’s what soldiers do.

     The U.S.  KA-BAR knife.

     The sergeant had one Devil of a time, trying to convince these boys he meant them

no harm.  Finally, realizing it was his drawn knife scaring the shit out of them, he 

sheathed his knife, pulled out a peach, took a bite and made a happy face.  He then 

offered it to “my Czech” - who gingerly took a bite - after which Christmas exploded 

inside his mouth. Needless to say “my” skeletal, little Czech wolfed the rest of it 

down greedily.

     The head of the column in the distance subsequently started to move out. 

     The sergeant ran back to his tank, crawled up the side, and yelled at someone 

down inside the turret. Eventually one of his men handed six K- Rations – all Dinners 

- up through the turret. 

        The U.S. Army’s K-Ration Dinner.

     The sergeant ran these meals back to the children, and demonstrated how to

open  them.  He also left his knife and canteen with them - patted their encrusted, 

close-cropped, louse infested heads - and then ran back to his tank just as it began

to move.

     “My Czech” picked up the can of peaches and the sergeant’s knife - then stepped 

out onto the road. 

     Looking back from inside his turret, the sergeant waved goodbye.

     “My” pint-sized, emaciated Czech replied; waving the knife over his head - 

clenched in his minuscule, bony fist.  He waved until the sergeant vanished, inside 

the pillar of dust kicked up by the convoy. 

     Again, as if in a dream, “my Czech” watched the white stars on all the vehicles 

float past in the dust; the roar of their engines and clattering of their tracks vibrating 

his scrawny rib cage.  And while standing there mesmerized in the wake of the 

convoy’s dust and exhaust fumes – merely skin, bones and a soul – “my” little Czech

filled his lungs with dust and American exhaust, and then screamed with all his 

might: “FUCK EUROPE!”

     On that day a fire was ignited inside his fluttering, under-fed, undersized heart; a 

fire that could never be quenched until he set foot on American soil.

     Nineteen years later this same Czech ultimately extinguished that fire, dear reader,

and wound up on my front porch.  The seven grand he managed to milk out of that 

belligerent insurance company, not only saved our financial ass, but launched my 

career in aviation.

     I remember Mom asking the Czech point blank, “...why would you throw away 

your first job in the States to help us out?  You don’t even know us.”

     The Czech replied, “Mrs. Chisholm, what that insurance company did to you...is 

the same thing I saw the Nazis do in Czechoslovakia.  This is not supposed to 

happen in America.”   

     God bless that bored sergeant in the tank turret.  God bless that Czech.

       *     *     *     *     *