Lyle Carr, husband to, Vernie, was in the Army and was evidently a very good soldier. He made Staff Sergeant quickly and stayed in the States in a training capacity until late in 1944. He was sent to England and his unit boarded two ships for the trip across the channel to France on Christmas Day 1944. The other ship was torpedoed by a submarine with 100% loss of life before reaching France. This was a major wake up call for him that luck was a huge factor in surviving. The winter in Europe in 1944-45 was one of the coldest on record and he was never in a building until the war was over, May 8, 1945. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was wounded in the neck, shoulder and arm from shrapnel while in a boat crossing the Rhine River into Germany. He said if the war had lasted one more day, he would have been field-promoted to Second Lieutenant. After he died, his sons were getting ready for his funeral and opened a trunk they had never seen. In it was his Bronze Star with combat V device. He never told anyone he had won the Bronze Star, only the fact he had been wounded! Lyle Carr, circa 1943