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"See we weren't the liberators. We were just the first medical troops. But when the army unit that took Buchenwald was aware what was there, they decided they were going to take that no matter what. And we got the word to move out even before they had taken the camp because they knew that there were a lot of sick people there. So we got in; they had already taken the camp. We just came in and tended to the people that were extremely sick there." Michele I. Kelly (interviewer): "So one of the people that was at Buchenwald was the author--" Milton Silva: "Elie Weisel. Now he was at U. Mass. (University of Massachusetts) Dartmouth several years ago as a commencement speaker, and I had been invited to the brunch before the ceremony. And I went over, and I introduced myself, and I said 'Dr. Weisel, you and I have something in common', and he said 'What's that', and I said 'I was with the 120th evacuation hospital'. And I didn't have to say anything else because he knew, and he pulled me to him, and he
put his arms around me, and he said 'Thank you'." Retired Judge Milton Silva, World War II Army Veteran.
"It was a real tough go. What was it like on the beach? We were getting slaughtered. We really got slaughtered. Half of the guys never got to shore; they were hit right in the water, you know. There was debris all over the place. There were tanks. Evidently, ahead of us they had tried to bring some tanks ashore, and they were in the surf. And there was all kinds of stuff floating there. You know, you name it. Not just bodies, I mean there was all kinds of equipment. There was enough equipment to probably outfit a regiment again. Our company, being one of the assault companies, we were at approximately 150 percent strength. We had two company commanders. We had two executive officers. A platoon is lead by a lieutenant, generally a second lieutenant. An executive officer is generally the first. Some platoons had two lieutenants beside platoon sergeants; some platoons had extra platoon sergeants because they knew we were going to take a beating. They knew percentage-wise we were going to lose acertain amount of guys. I trained with guys; I never saw them after D-Day! I don't know where they went to. They could have been blown up; they could have been shot right there. Drifted out in the Channel and disappeared. It was one of those crazy old things, you know?" Raymond Stott, World War II Army Veteran, 1st Infantry Division, 1st wave on the beach at Normandy.
