In July 1995, I happened to see Walt Lambert, Sr. and our conversation was about growing up in this part of the world and some of our life experiences.  I jotted down some notes of things Walt related to me and these are some of the highlights of our conversation: Walt is pretty shriveled up in body but has a sharp mind and a great memory.

He served in the ETO (European Theater of Operations) during World War II. (This theater I speak of doesn’t have anything to do with entertainment!) His outfit was the 62nd field artillery battalion. They were attached to different divisions in lots of different places where the fighting was going on. Walt saw action in Sicily, Italy, France and Germany, so he was in the same vicinity that my 45th Division saw action. Walt got over there about a year sooner than I did.  I arrived on the scene as a replacement after Sicily was taken. [Photo: Major Lowe, Cecil Hall and Radio Operator, Julian Jablin]

I asked Walt what his job was and he said, “Oh I did lots of things -  like operating a machine gun or a BAR.” — (which is a Browning Automatic Rifle). Or just wherever they needed me.” At that point of our conversation be remarked about how little knowledge some of our troops had about handling problems in the field, especially city boys who never got stuck in the mud!

Walt grew up in the depression as a ragged-ass kid working in a saw mill, up on the Cochetopa. So
I am sure old Walt could handle anything the Army threw at him! Walt and his brother Maynard (Tuff) were in the same company and during the invasion of Normandy, Walt told me “I’ll bet I am about the only enlisted man around whoever called a 2-Star General “Buddy”. I asked him how that happened. He said, “I was helping bring another guy to the aid station when this fellow, asked me if I had a dry cigarette” “I said, sure, Buddy, and even gave him a match -  he was soaking wet.” “After he moved on, one of the other guys told me I had just given a smoke to a 2-Star General.” (The big brass didn’t wear those stars exposed when the going was tough. We enlisted men were not expected to salute officers -   stars and other pretties would draw fire from the enemy!)

I asked Walt if he ever got hurt and he said “No, but the day my brother got hit, our outfit was 150 miles behind the lines.”

Walt’s outfit was attached to the 1st, Inf. Div and hit Omaha Beach. I told him we made the invasion of Southern France and he said “Yeh. we were sure glad when you joined up with us.”

Another Saguache boy, Bob Fennell was in the 3rd Inf. Div. And Clyde Werner, Dario Archuleta and I were in the 45th.  Those two divisions fought side by side throughout the whole mess.  So all os Saguache “kids” were pretty close together.  Walt and I both recalled times when we lost good buddies and we often wonder why fate smiled on us.  You can’t explain it – I think the best answer is – it just wasn’t our time!

P.S. My last conversation with Walt at Homelake Veterans Center, I shook his gnarled up crippled hand and we visited and joked.  He was little and shriveled up on the outside but like a lot of small fellows I have known – he was big on the inside!  I went away thinking of my brother, Charlie.