When my father, Alfred Richer, was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943, I was 1 year old. The following year, he was sent to Europe. As World War II raged on, my mother, Rita, was due to give birth to my brother, Edward, in January 1945.
My father fought many battles and received many awards. He died in Stoumont, Belgium, in the early morning hours of Dec. 21, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. But he did not die in vain. He was part of Company C, 119th Infantry Regiment, 30th Division, which rescued about 250 civilians, among them children, nuns and priests, at the St. Edouard Sanatorium.
Before Mom left for the hospital to give birth to my brother, my maternal grandfather (who we called Pepere) intercepted…
