I live near an old WWII army training base called Camp Swift and it had a large POW camp for Germans and with the Germans they had a group of guys from Mongolia. I guess they were in the Russian army and captured by the Germans who took them to North Africa as that is where most of the German Pow's came from. The book did not say what ever happened to them but I thought it strange you would come from Mongolia and end up in Texas.
As always, anouther good post JC !