MEDIC BATTLES MEMORIES OF HIS FALLEN COMRADES

Just before the American forces became involved in World War II, recruiters told Dwight Dodson he was too old to serve his country.

"But they didn't let me go altogether," he said. "I was put on standby in the reserves."

After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Dodson, then 28 years old, was reinstated.

"I spent the first two years of the war in the islands of the Pacific," he said. "The island I was on were pretty quiet, so it wasn't so bad."

Dodson served as a medic with an infantry division of the U.S. Army.

"I wasn't even a good nurse," he said. "We were trained to tie tourniquets, wrap bandages, give out aspirin where it was needed and administer some morphine, but it was the officers who were the doctors."

After his two-year tour in the Pacific was up, he was shipped back stateside. He thought he was home to stay.

"I got married when I came home," he said. "Then, a few weeks later, they called me back."

This time, Dodson was sent to Europe, where he was hooked up with an infantry division just west of the German border.

On Dec. 16, 1944, Dodson's division -- the 106th Infantry -- found itself directly in the line of fire at the Battle of the Bulge.

"We were stationed right on the border -- right where the Germans decided to come through," Dodson said. "We spent a few days running around trying to stay alive, but ultimately the entire division was done away with."

"The men that were left soon ran out of ammunition and food," he said. "The Germans began driving through our lines, dividing us up, capturing or killing who was left. I was one of the lucky ones."

The prisoners captured by German forces were marched back into Germany, he said.

"We had been without food or sleep for about three days during the battle, before we were captured," said Dodson. "After they (the Germans) rounded us up, they marched us about 70 miles into Germany.

"The German guards kept changing -- bringing fresh ones in and letting the tired ones sleep -- but we had to keep going all the time," he said. "Some of the men fell out. I don't know what happened to them, but I can imagine."

The Germans routed the group of prisoners into a barnyard near Baden, where they stayed until they were loaded into railroad boxcars in groups of 50.

"The box cars were so cramped, it was impossible to lay down or even sit down," he said. "Most of us just leaned against the walls or each other, and slept for the first time in days."

The prisoners were kept on the trains for four days and nights as they were transported across the German state. The first stop was at a camp in Central Germany. There, the officers were separated from the enlisted men.

"Later on, they took the enlisted officers away," Dodson said. "I had to leave with that group."

Dodson said he never found out what happened to any of the men who remained at the camp.

The enlisted officers were again loaded on to railroad boxcars, and were shipped to a prison camp near Ziegenheim.

"I stayed there until the Americans captured that part of Germany," he said. "It was about five or six months before they came. It seemed like an eternity."

Since he was a medic, the Germans allowed Dodson to care for sick and wounded prisoners in other barracks at the prison camp. The Germans promised Dodson some basic medications to care for his comrades, but he never received a single pill.

"I had less trouble with my health than other boys at the camp, but after a while, I took sick myself," said Dodson. "It got to the point where I must have passed out or something -- I just can't remember. When I awoke, my feet were frozen."

Dodson still suffers the effects of the severe frostbite he sustained at the prison camp. When he is not making his way through the Missouri Veterans Home with a cane at his side, he is sitting in his room with his feet up.

"That prison was a pretty rough place," Dodson recalls nearly 50 years later. "Quite a few boys died there. Good boys; they deserved better."

That is why each year on Memorial Day, Dodson takes a moment to recall the men he knew and many of those he cared for that did not make it home alive.

"Sometimes it all seems like it was 50 years ago, but sometimes you just can't get it out of your mind," he said. "You can never forget something like that. No matter how hard you try."