Myself and a bunch of other GIs were minding our own business, drinking at a bonfire outside of Homestead, back in the mid-80s. All of a sudden we got lit up from the other side of a canal, and cops are yelling at us not to move. I guess they’d interrupted a drop, and had people running on the ground. They were trying to figure out how to get on our side of the canal, so I told them. They’d have had to go drive about a mile, so I guess they figured it wasn’t worth it.
At the time, I carried the M60 machinegun. Late one cold night, we heard sounds from the river. The squad leader checked to see if there were any friendlies supposed to be on the river and, when he was told there was not, we set up an ambush. As the sounds drew closer, the squad leader popped a flare and we all opened fire. I had about a 200-round belt on my hog and was firing 10-round bursts ...
... under the flare, there was some fisherman frantically pulling on his oars for the other side of the Rhein as I was expending the last of my ammo ...