Tales From My Grandfather: 80th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge

Both of my grandfathers fought in the Second World War, entering combat in 1944 and staying in Europe throughout the duration of the War in Europe and its aftermath. Both resided from small towns in lakes area, rural Minnesota. My maternal grandfather fought in the 94th Infantry Division, and my paternal grandfather fought in the 10th Armored Division. Both belonged to General George S. Patton's Third Army, the same Third Army that exists to this day and my unit was under nearly six and a half decades later. One grandfather told many stories of the War, but his eyes closed about nine months before mine opened, so those stories have traveled through my father. And the grandfather I did know well never told stories of the War to his family, except to his two grandsons (myself included) who fought in the Global War on Terror era. There are many stories I could tell that have traveled through my father to me about Ernest M. Olson, Combat Command B (CCB), 10th Armored Division. 

This story is a Christmas story because it represented the low point in the war for him. 

The brilliant "Band of Brothers" has since made the Battle and Siege at Bastogne the entry point for the War in Europe for many in my generation. The focus of that show is Easy Company of the 101st Airborne. There is a brief mention of a Lt. George Rice, 10th Armored, who warns Cpt. Richard Winters that the German Panzer Division has cut the roads south, "looks like you boys are going to be surrounded." Cpt. Winters responded: "we're paratroopers, we're supposed to be surrounded." The episode ends with the elements of the 101st Airborne marching into the woods in the Belgian town of Bastogne to hold the line. The phrase hold the line itself has become synonymous in American military and now political dialogue. A place where you cannot surrender from. It is fight or annihilation. Life, or death. I clung to that brief appearance from the 10th Armored in that show because I knew that was my grandfather's unit, and I knew from stories that throughout the Siege of Bastogne, my grandfather was dug in and surrounded. The 101st Airborne has gotten the glory for decades, but elements of the 10th Armored, specifically his Combat Command B, were also present. And reading between the lines of that scene they would have been there even before the 101st Airborne arrived. It wasn't just that show. Press accounts at the time have always overlooked the contributions of the other units. But the reality is, as Antony Beevor's international bestseller Ardennes 1944 explains, the 10th Armored was one of two formations that the commanding General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered to the Ardennes that first evening in December, a handful of days before Christmas. Combat Command B of the 10th Armored and its commander Col. William L. Roberts, had a "better idea of how desperate the situation was." 

It was the largest German offensive of the western front burst out of the Ardennes forest on December 16, 1944, aiming to drive a wedge between British and American forces and to capture the Belgian port of Antwerp, vital to the German need to re-supply. Combat Command B was the first major combat unit to defend Bastogne arriving on December 18th, one week before Christmas. 

My grandfather described this, as did just about anyone present, as the hardest and lowest days of the War for him. They were poorly supplied and without winter clothing, and the hospital overrun within days. The absolute low point came on Christmas Day my father was told, where Pfc. Olson sat down with his Christmas dinner, one of the few meals per year in military life that are going to be a step up from the usual. He took maybe a bite or two out of it before an exploded German artillery shell and its blasted dirt and snow from the Earth took it away from his hands and ruined it. As I'm sure many family histories could tell, and one of many reasons the "Band of Brothers" show first released just after 9/11, resonated so well with all who saw it and have these stories. The promise to God that Richard Winters made in the show that if he managed to get home again he would find a quiet piece of land somewhere, and spend the rest of his life in peace, is the same promise my grandfather made on Christmas Day, 1944 -- 80 years ago today. My grandfather would live another 40 years after that promise, raising four children with his wife Marie who he married just before leaving for Europe. An avid hunter like many Minnesota men, he didn't like the cold during hunting season as he got older, and my father, the youngest, recalled that they never spent a night away from home. They'd drive back from wherever they were the same night. A promise made, a promise kept. 

The press called those surrounded and shelled in those days the "battered bastards of Bastogne." But the actions of the 10th Armored Division's Combat Command B have always been overlooked in comparison to the famous 101st Airborne and General Patton's drive to rescue the encircled American troops who faced total annihilation. 

Of course, they are all heroes to me. And I am sure the Christmas Day story of my grandfather was made by many soldiers that day and in the days and weeks surrounding it. 

For those reading, a Merry Christmas to you and your family and a Happy New Year. 

*Republished from A Republic, We Will Restore It by permission of the author.

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author (with Gavin Wax) of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of the Veterans Caucus. He lives in New York City with his wife and son, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

Brain Rot: An Unfortunate Word of the Year

The 2024 Oxford Word of the Year is “brain rot.” It is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.” Although this term is meant as a humorous commentary on excessive technology use and hints at its potential harms, the definition itself is incorrect—or at best, incomplete. Brain rot is not just “supposed,” it’s real, and it’s harmful, especially for minors whose brains are still developing. 

Several studies have shown that certain kinds of technology use negatively affect the brain, particularly in minors. One study found that frequent use of mobile devices “may displace their opportunities for learning emotion-regulation strategies over time,” meaning that kids do not develop healthy ways to deal with stress and adversity. Another found that children who spend too much time on screens have less white matter in their brains and perform worse on cognitive testing. Yet another found that Internet addiction literally changes the brain’s structure and can lead to “chronic dysfunction.” Excessive tech usage does more than waste a few hours or reduce time spent in real-world interactions. It can alter the brain in ways that lead to long-term decreases in productivity and social skills. 

Countering brain rot is a serious challenge. Since the pandemic, the time minors spend on screens has skyrocketed, with teens now spending over 8.5 hours per day on them, and tweens at over 5.5 hours. With one study finding that difficulty making friends, lower curiosity, and other psychological issues are correlated with just four hours of screen use, it seems highly probable that excessive screen time is exacerbating the mental health crisis. Given high anxiety levels and the difficulty many young people have forming meaningful real-world relationships, parents, schools, and policymakers should actively be thinking about ways to give kids more opportunities to socialize without screens. 

While public policy can be a ham-fisted way to solve social or cultural challenges, getting phones out of school is one solution that appears to have real promise. It has garnered bipartisan support and the early returns indicate both academic and social benefits. At Illing Middle School in Connecticut, which banned phones last December, students report having to “just find conversation” and “figure it out.” Brain rot is real, but it does not have to become normalized, and it can be beaten when space is created for offline conversation to flourish. 

While schools can and should take certain actions to limit screens, parents will ultimately be the most important fighters in the war on brain rot. While different families will use different methods, and certain kids handle screens better than others, there are a few broad principles parents can use to find success. Delaying the age at which a child gets their first smartphone and then limiting how much time they spend on it is a great first step, as is really learning how to use parental control tools. But kids are often tech-savvy and parental controls are not foolproof. If kids are bored all day, they will find ways to entertain themselves, often through screens. 

Ultimately, beating brain rot requires giving young people meaningful real-world interactions. This can be through religious organizations, sports, the arts, or (especially for younger kids) unstructured play time outside with peers. Taking screens away is only effective if a satisfying alternative is offered. Given the prevalence of the virtual world, community building requires more intentionality than ever, but the payoff is worth it. Let’s beat brain rot, together. 

Education by Numbers

 

The human soul is inimitable; Artificial Intelligence, while wildly impressive, will always fall short.

We individual beings are idiosyncratic in a way that is incomputable to machines. 

Many, however, fail to appreciate this indisputable fact and look at humans, not as God's inexplicable creations, but as product-maximizing homo-economici: faceless units whose value is measured by their outputs.  

Schools, in particular, are overly output-driven.

In an article for First Things, S. A. Dance writes that education is "a spiritual pursuit." The spirit is not quantifiable, but rather, something that is cultivated through leisure.

Leisure, Dance recognizes, has become something of a pejorative. Today, leisureliness is seen as indolence. 

Dance and others, however, see leisure as a meditative and reflective practice. A school's goal, he writes, ought to be to "refine our capacities to think rationally, contemplate reality, appreciate beauty, and feel gratitude." 

Modern education, however, prioritizes "standards-based learning," neglecting the nourishment of one's "interior life" in the process. 

Since we have supplanted spiritual education with standards-based education, we have, in effect, sanitized learning of its humanity. In comes AI.

At this point, everyone knows how powerful a tool ChatGPT has become: all you have to do is input a few basic prompts relating to any given subject, and it will spit out a full-length article or essay. 

Dance argues that this technology has only become a threat because we, through our political-economization of academia, have let it:

The interior life is qualitative in nature; however, schools deal exclusively with the quantitative. This category error explains the intuitive revulsion most teachers feel about issuing grades and administering standardized tests. The bureaucracy demands numbers, and so we beat numbers out of our students to appease it.

People, though, cannot be reduced to numbers. To do so is cold and, I would argue, inhumane. 

Education, especially the liberal arts, must be a humanizing endeavor, one that AI could never compete with.

Disrupting Isolation

 

Breaking old habits is hard.  

I say that because most of us city-dwellers are in the nasty habit of insulating ourselves from our neighbors and communities. As I wrote for National Review a few months ago, "When we walk down the street, we turn off our peripheral vision and focus only on the destination, never the journey."

We have become overly-utilitarian, socially-averse and stuck in rigid routines. 

I always feel the need to admit: I, too, have insulated myself. I could be far more involved in my community. I could learn more of my neighbor's names. I need to do better. We all do. 

Some, recognizing that a life of atomization and loneliness is fundamentally unhealthy, have taken the plunge into community engagement. 

In Front Porch Republic, Dennis Uhlman writes about a chili cook-off that he spearheaded in his new South Carolina neighborhood.

From the article:

By late afternoon, to my surprise, a steady stream of neighbors started to show up. Some of the families had young children like us, others were older couples and single people who seemed excited to meet the people that lived around them... For a couple of hours, our driveway was the center of activity as people tried each other’s chili, connected over small talk, and earnestly asked if we could do more events like this in the future. It was a great and surprising day, and I hope it is a precursor to more community being built in the future.

This was a valiant move by Dennis. Many of the people he encountered when advertising the cook-off were perplexed by his neighborliness and unusual hospitality. He writes that, while handing out flyers, "the resistance against disrupting isolation was palpable." 

We are cocooned by our isolation. Dennis, chili in hand, rejected that.  

Let's all try to be more like Dennis.