SMALL WORLD: Imagine being in a war half-way around the world
and meeting up with a buddy from the old hometown.[neWLine]

We’ve heard from more than one veteran of such an experience,
and today we tell you the tale of Norm Wolcott of Bradford during
World War II.[neWLine]

Norm phoned us after reading a column about the 4th Infantry
Division, saying he and a few others he knew from Bradford had been
members of that division.[neWLine]

The two others were Fred Zeigler and Don
Middlebrough.[neWLine]

Interestingly, each of the men earned a Purple
Heart.[neWLine]

Fred Zeigler, as many of our readers probably know, was a
dentist in Bradford for many years. He and Norm had been friends
even in childhood.[neWLine]

When World War II erupted, both men hoped to join the Cavalry.
According to Norm, Dr. Zeigler did not want to serve as an Army
doctor but the war department saw it differently, and sent him to
Officer Training School.[neWLine]

One of the chance meetings occurred around the time of the
Normandy Invasion.[neWLine]

Norm tells us he went in D-Day morning, one of those relieving
the 82nd Airborne.[neWLine]

As for Fred, Norm tells us: “”A doctor went nuts and Fred
volunteered to go to the front lines. He was a mile behind the
front lines and was to pack up the wounded and get them back.”” It
was there that Fred was wounded, Norm relates.[neWLine]

Norm, too, was injured. While hoping to get back with his
company and free up a sickbed for another soldier, he was directed
instead to help another soldier dig a foxhole. That other soldier,
it turned out, was Fred.[neWLine]

They dug together and talked, Norm says. “”Then there was German
artillery. He went one way and I went the other. I never saw him
until after the war.””[neWLine]

As for Don, he had been an ambulance driver. “”I was laying in
bed wounded. I had been hit in the face and had been blinded,””
Norm tells us. But, as it turned out, he discovered the guy right
next to him was Don Middlebrough.[neWLine]

For years, Norm says, nobody ever talked about the war – himself
included. “”Now that I’m older, I don’t care.””[neWLine]

His Purple Heart has an oak leaf cluster, and he received
“”seven bronze stars, and all the rest of the stuff you get.””