One of my father’s World War II stories was of the time in 1944-1945 when he, as a fairly new American lieutenant, was assigned to run a Prisoner of War (POW) camp in Western Europe. His prisoners were about half German, half Russian.

Russia had been our ally for years. What were Russians doing as prisoners in an Allied camp?

Dad explained it roughly this way: “When the Allies gained ground, they liberated Germany’s POW camps, and the Russian soldiers in them. Then they called Stalin and asked what to do with the Russian prisoners. Stalin said, ‘They’re not real Russians. Real Russians fight to the death. These must be Germans pretending to be Russians. So you keep them!’”

Dad said that every one of these Russians wanted the Allies to win, and did everything in their power to help him as camp administrator. One time the Russians were assigned to unload a truckload of food. One of them put a can of juice in his own pocket. The other Russians yelled at him that he was helping Hitler; beat him up; and put the juice back where it belonged.

Dad was very confident that Stalin abandoned Russian soldiers, who still loved Russia, in order to make himself feel and look better. It wasn’t the worst thing Stalin did — not by a long shot — but it shows the cruel consequences of bad leadership.

I miss my dad, and the rest of that WWII generation. They saved the world! And after they came home, you could have pulled their fingernails out and they still wouldn’t have admitted that they did anything special. We need people like them now; I hope we have enough.

DAVE CUNDIFF

Ilwaco