The Veterans and Concerned Citizens of Veterans have named the U.S. Army Marshall for the Veterans Day Parade Andy Haines was 22 years old when he jumped into France on D-Day
in 1944. He was a member of the Famous 101st Airborne Division,
with the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. He was surrounded and
wounded at the Battle of the Bulge. He parachuted into France and
Holland during WWII. Before leaving for England in March 1944, he
married Jane, his high school sweetheart on January 8th. Haines
said, “we jumped in the dark”, with 600 paratroopers of his
Regiment, descending into France. Andy said that he was nervous
and a little scared, because this was the first time he ever
jumped when someone was shooting back at him. On Christmas Eve
1944, General McAuliffe was asked by the German Commander, to
surrender. His response was, “Nuts”. The troops were proud of
his response, his troops were not about to give up. We won that
battle.
Haines returned home December 1945, he jumped off the train and Jane
ran into his open arms. Andy went back to college to get an
electrical engineering degree. His memories still run strong, many
of them are painful memories, of the price of freedom.
