AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
This fall marks 80 years since the end of World War II.
ALVIN BALABAN: I can talk about war experience, all that stuff.
RASCOE: WEEKEND EDITION producer Samantha Balaban grew up hearing stories from her grandfather about his time in the Army.
A BALABAN: OK. Tell me when to start.
SAMANTHA BALABAN, BYLINE: You can start whenever you're ready.
A BALABAN: Do I have to give my name or anything like that?
RASCOE: Alvin Balaban served with the 3rd Battalion, 345th Infantry Regiment, 87th Division in the European Theater of Operations. He was in the Battle of the Bulge and the Siegfried Line campaign and spent nine months overseas before sailing back to New York Harbor in 1945.
A BALABAN: Everybody was crowding the rails to see New York and came on the Statue of Liberty, and I began to cry, unbidden. Just the sight of the statue standing there and home, which is what it represented to me. The tears just came flooding out.
RASCOE: Al Balaban was never sure he'd make it home. This Veterans Day weekend, his granddaughter Samantha shares one of his stories recorded in 2012, about the day he didn't die in Europe.
A BALABAN: Before I went into the Army, which was in 1943 - the early part of 1943 - I had been in college. I had completed 3 1/2 years. I was 18 1/2.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY'S "POSTCARD FROM 1952")
A BALABAN: I was assigned, eventually after basic training, to a medical detachment because I had been a premed student. Although my job ended up being a litter bearer, which relied more on my brawn than on my brain, but that was the way the Army went. Of course, being in a combat situation, I was absolutely terrified out of my skin. It's a terrifying, frightening, unbearable situation to be under direct fire by artillery, by grenades, by machine gun, by rifle fire, and to know that there are forces and individuals out there who want you dead.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY'S "POSTCARD FROM 1952")
A BALABAN: But then we got through all kinds of situations. The more frightening one happened after we had gotten into Germany, after crossing a couple of rivers at midnight, and all kinds of interesting adventures. We were trying to break through the Siegfried Line. It was probably February. Snow was quite deep, and we had to slog across this field from the woods where we had assembled and started across this open field.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY'S "POSTCARD FROM 1952")
A BALABAN: And when a significant number of troops got across that field, quite visible to the Germans - it was early in the morning - they waited that long and then opened fire.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY'S "POSTCARD FROM 1952")
A BALABAN: The shells started to fall in the area in the group where I was, and we flung ourselves into the snow and tried to bury down as deep as we could to avoid being hit. And one of my friends in front of me suddenly let out a scream, and I peeked up under my helmet to look up to see what was wrong. And his foot was in front of me about an inch and a half, 2 inches. And projecting from his foot was a shell fragment about eight inches long that had dug into his heel. I thought, oh, my God, that missed me by a couple of inches. It would've gone right through my helmet. And I just missed dying at that moment. It brought home - as it had been all along, once we were in combat - the fragility of life and how easy it was to die, how easy it was to not be able to do anything about it.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY'S "POSTCARD FROM 1952")
A BALABAN: And that made it absolutely clear to me that every moment of living was a precious gift, and that it was important to enjoy it and to know that the next instant it could be gone.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY'S "POSTCARD FROM 1952")
A BALABAN: And the things that I had in my terror thought would never happen, that I would one day fall in love, get married, have children, have a career. The idea of grandchildren never even entered into my mind at that point. I couldn't possibly think that far ahead. And so I feel very fortunate that I've been able, through chance, to continue to live, to have a happy family life and to have wonderful grandchildren.
S BALABAN: Who's your favorite?
A BALABAN: Whoever I'm speaking to at the moment.
(LAUGHTER)
S BALABAN: Good answer.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY'S "POSTCARD FROM 1952")
RASCOE: That was WEEKEND EDITION producer Samantha Balaban speaking to her grandfather, Al Balaban, in 2012. After the war, Al Balaban did live a good long life. He finished his medical studies and became a psychiatrist. He was married to his wife, Barbara, for more than 70 years. They had three children and five grandchildren who called him Papa Al. He died in 2019 at the age of 94.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY'S "POSTCARD FROM 1952") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.