A Veteran's Story: Medic stopped WWII for a moment

"ATTICA -- Paul Martin can remember the day he stopped World War II by waving a flag.

Martin, 84, was a medic with the 44th Infantry Division in Germany in March 1945 when, during the heat of battle, he waved a Red Cross flag.

"I stopped the war that day," he said. "Even if it only lasted a few minutes."
During those minutes, American and German medics raced out into the killing field between the two armies and rescued wounded men.

Martin said it didn't really matter at some point if the wounded men were Americans or Germans. He and his fellow medics followed their basic rule."

A Veteran's Story: Medic stopped WWII for a moment | mansfieldnewsjournal.com | Mansfield News Journal

 

I wanted to share this story, learned on a Civil War forum I frequent. I figured rather than start a whole new thread, I'd find one that fell into the same category. Can't hear these stories enough!

With the blessings of the original poster:

"Even in the most vicious of wars, there are often a few instances of human beings clinging to shreds and bits of their humanity to recognize adversaries as fellow humans. It happened during the crusades, and it happened, famously, on one Christmas during WWI. A friend of mine in college related that his father had served as a medic with the US Army in Europe during WWII. On one occasion he crawled out into a no-man's land between his own unit and opposing German troops to tend a wounded German soldier. He got some grief for it afterwards from his own unit. Then two days later, he himself was hit. The men carrying his stretcher stumbled across a German machine gun nest and froze. A hand went up over the top of the sandbags and waved them past."

 

Yes! I got goosebumps when I read this account for the first time.

 

Great story, thank you.