Recently I was fortunate to have one of America's hero's come and speak to my Project Management class. This past spring semester, I have been teaching a Project Management class at Nicolet Technical College in Rhinelander Wisconsin. Nicolet is a beautiful campus with multiple buildings housing many different disciplines nestled in the middle of a huge acreage of the Northwoods of Wisconsin.
This friend of mine is a WWII veteran, past combat medic, and Bronze Star recipient. His name is Stan Spillar and he is 92 years old. Stan has given talks on his experience landing on Normandy on D-day +2 on Utah beach many times over. Stan was visiting his daughter up here in St. Germain, and I invited him to come and speak to my class. But this is a Project Management class and I was wrestling with how I could justify his presence in the class and how his talk would relate to the subject of Project Management, when it occurred to me, that he was a team member in the biggest project effort ever imagined. The invasion of France. Just think of how many countries were involved in that effort. Think about the difficulty of coordinating every group or individual. What an effort, what a success, and what tragedy ensued to make it successful.
Stan was a combat medic assigned to the 90th Division 357th Regiment. Not only was he a medic, but he was also a runner. A runner is a person who, because of the lack of adequate communications between the groups of men, would take messages back and forth at the request of upper management, i.e. senior officers.
Stan is not a large man, standing about 5'7, but he is lean and still in great physical shape, which he extols in any talks he gives, trying to instill in the minds of young people that the body is a machine, and needs to be greased and oiled frequently through a good diet, and regular exercise. He will tell and demonstrate how he does his squats in the morning, each and every day.
Prior to his speaking to the class, i.e. the night before, I researched the 357th Regiment and came up with some combat footage of this group as it entered into the town of Chambois, France, and low and behold, there is Stan, right there on the big screen with a bunch of his buddies, as they display a captured Nazi flag, while standing in front of a disabled Germain tank. So I put together a short video that contained a lot of this combat footage along with some photos I found on the internet of Stan and his comrades. You can view it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtTWjX9aSmE
The 357th was known as the Texas Oklahoma Regiment and was formed during WWI by the Texas National Guard. They were deactivated after the war and their colors cased. However when WWII broke out they were reactivated. But Stan will tell you that his group was so successful in accomplishing their missions during WWII, that General Patten himself renamed them from Texas Oklahoma to the "Tough Hombres".
When the war broke out Stan asked his father, who fought in WWI, if he could sign up, but his father had already seen the atrocities of war and would try to make sure his son would not be a part in any war. However, Stan was so adamant about joining up that he told his dad if he would not sign for him to join, then he would run away and find another way to do it. So reluctantly, his dad agreed to put his signature on the document that would send his son off to a foreign land and into battle. Something that many parents also did during this time of our countries need. Many, many sacrifices were made by ALL Americans, to make sure that freedom would endure.
I picked up Stan around eleven thirty and he was accompanied by his daughter Val. Stan brought along with him many, many articles and historical paraphernalia he had collected over the years. Among them was a medal he had recently received on his participation of the Honor Flight to Washington, something he was very very proud of.
We chatted along the way, arriving at the school at around 12:20 (class started at 12:30). Stan and Val sat in the back of the classroom, as I prepared the audio visual overhead projection system, so that I could show the class the video I put together. They had no idea who the visitors in the back of the room were.
When everyone was seated and the chatter calmed down I gave a short talk on the project of the Normandy invasion, and the difficulties it took to put it all together. Stan sat quietly in the back awaiting his turn. But first I started the video. The students watched intently with interest, there were about sixteen of them that day. Even the student who always shows up to class, but sits way in the back, with his laptop going, and his ear buds nestled in his ears and who never really pays any attention to the class lecture, was seen removing his ear buds, and watching with keen interest as the video unfolded.
The video is about nine minutes long, and when it ended, there was total silence in the room. I think it was then when the class realized who was in their presence and about to speak. So I broke the silence with an introduction, and Stan rose and came to the front of the class. I have seen many veterans who have received medals for valor under fire give many talks, and the one underlying this that is common among them all is their patriotism.
Stan talked about what it was like crossing the English Channel on a troop transport, and how the seas were very rough and most of the men had gotten sea sick. He related that once when he rushed to the railing of the ship's deck to throw up over the side he came to realize that he was throwing up on the men on the next deck below, but then again, the same was being done to him also from the men on the deck above. He then talked about his recollection of disembarking the ship by climbing over the side and descending to the landing craft below, via a rope ladder hung over the side. It was a difficult descent as the landing craft crashed into the side of the ship due to the rough seas.
When the boat was loaded, they headed into shore. He related how the sailor driving the boat told them, "Boy's I'm going to get you in as close as I can.", and he guided that boat into shore and dropped the front bow for the men to disembark. Stan said when he got off he was in knee deep water, which he was very thankful for, because he could see other men in other boats aside of them who were not so lucky. Men, who when they got off the ramp of the boat and stepped into the water, were up to their necks, or over their head in the deep abyss. The men were carrying hundred pound back packs on their backs, an a lot of the men drowned, right there in front of him. It was quite a shock and Stan's first taste of death. But Stan had a job to do and that was to get off that boat, and get into shore. So he did just that when he and his comrades jumped in and got to shore as fast as they could.
They moved in shore and proceeded inland. They were under enemy fire. But because of Stan's present age in relating this story. we cannot put into chronological order the exact order of events as they unfolded. So I will outline here some of the highlights of these stories. Among which is that while under fire and pinned down, the Lieutenant and leader of the squad, had to get a message back to another group, and Stan, while being a runner, was the man chosen and whose duty it was to deliver the message where it had to go. Stan took the message and put it into his pouch and headed from fox hole to fox hole as quickly as he could, all the while under constant artillery fire. He had to now go up and over a hill. As he climbed up this hill and went over the top of other side, he could hear voices, German voices. When he looked around he saw some German soldiers coming towards him. There were four of them to be exact. He was young very much afraid at the sight of them, and thought he was a surely about to be another certain casualty of war. He thought for a moment and stood up with rifle at the ready. He was not going to go down without a fight. When the Germans saw him standing there, poised with his rifle shouldered and aimed directly at the four Germans they immediately and without hesitation threw their weapons to the ground and quickly put their hands up in the air, surrendering themselves to him.
Stan marched his new prisoners in the direction of where he had to deliver his message. On the way he came upon some wounded Americans, he did what he could to stabilize them. He was in a quagmire though. He had to tend the wounded, while guarding his prisoners. So as he stopped to do what he could for the men, he ordered the German prisoners to make, make-shift stretchers, and ordered them to carry the wounded along with them to their final destination. However, as Stan emphasizes, the Germans were reluctant to do so, to go where they directed them, because they were afraid they would be targets from their German comrades who were in the area and still fighting. As they hesitated, Stan yelled at them "Achtung!!!" and quickly raised his rifle. Upon doing so, the Germans picked up the wounded and carried them to where they were going. For this single handed capture and rescue of his fellow soldiers, while under enemy fire, Stan was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor.
But Stan's stories did not end there. He talked about Bastogne, another part of France where General McCaulif was surrounded by hundreds of German troops, and also a part of the battle of the Bulge, and his participation in their liberation. He recalled how it was so cold, that he had to carry some of his treatment medications against his bare chest for warmth, because he was so afraid of them freezing, and becoming useless. He explained the difference between the American tank's firepower, and the way it fired and the way the German tank fired the 88 artillery tank round. He said the the American artillery would be shot up into the air and then fall to earth hopefully hitting the target and exploding, but the German 88s were so powerful that they shot their artillery shells in a straight line of sight. He said you could hear them coming as they whizzed by. One story he told was when in a fox hole, and he had to relieve himself, he held it as long as he could. Because he was not in the fox hole by himself, but with another buddy. He had a choice to make, he could drop his pants and go in the hole, which would be very unpleasant for the both of them, or he could risk leaving the hole and getting shot at or shelled. He decided the latter, and as he was in the middle of doing his business, when the 88 shells started whizzing by, and detonating all around him. Stan quickly dove for the safety of the fox hole, while his pants were still below his knees.
Stan said that General George S. Patton was so impressed with the success and bravery of the 90th division, that he moved them under his command, and from that point on, they became part of General Patton's Third Army. He recalled that during the Battle of the Bulge, in December 1944, it was so cold that most of the wounded were frost bitten. He said their feet were very cold, and also very wet. But if you took off your wet socks, then your feet would swell, and you could not get your boots back on, so the order of the day was, no one was to remove their boots.
Another area he served in was Theresienstadt concentration camp, also referred to as Theresienstadt Ghetto, it was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín (German name Theresienstadt), located in what is now the Czech Republic. During World War II it served as a Nazi concentration camp staffed by German Nazi guards. Stan was one of the American troops to liberate that camp and told of what he saw and the atrocities that went on there. Stan had a complete distaste for the Nazi SS. He told the class that the SS had no heart or sole. He said their members were hand picked as children and how the children were told to bring their pets from home to school, where they were told to dissect them. He said the SS had no concern for the value of human life and how they were totally indifferent to life or death.
At one point in his talk he started to sing......God Bless America, land that I love.......I am sure the class was surprised, as he sang the entire song so proudly. He had a pretty good voice too! When he finished he took questions from members of the class. All good questions, showing they were certainly paying attention, and fascinated with the man and his adventures. During Stan's talk many of his artifacts and souvenirs were passed around the class. Afterwards students wanted to get their picture taken with Stan, and they also wanted to inspect in more detail some of his photo albums and medals. One student, a very young shy girl of about nineteen years old, came up to Stan, and waited patiently for him to finish talking with another student, and said to him Thank You! Thank you for your service, as she extended her hand for a hand shake with him. With that small gesture, Stan said "Oh honey come here," as he walked around the table separating them, and gave her a big hug.
It was quite a day for Stan. I wish I knew him when I was younger, because I am sure he has forgotten more stories than he remembers. But the students got the opportunity of a lifetime to hear first hand from someone who was there, and not reading about WWII in a text book written by some historian.
