Orleans, France

After the war Gene was stationed in Auxerre waiting his time to go home.  He wrote this ...
Sometime about the end of October the battalion offered three day passes to Paris, Orleans and a couple of other places.  I decided to go to Orleans.  Most everyone opted to go to Paris.  Four of us from the battalion went to Orleans.  It was a beautiful French city that had not been touched by the war.  There was a big hotel in the middle of town where we stayed.  The food was delicious and they served wine at the meals.  The waiter could not understand when I turned my wine glass over and refrained from drinking it.  We were pretty much on our own after we got to the hotel.  I spent the first day exploring the city.  Its importance was noted by the number of statues to people who had been important in French history.  I found a small souivenir shop and bought some post cards and a folder about Orleans.  The best part of the day was being in a place that had not been destroyed by the war.

The second day I set out to explore the other part of the city.  I was still enthralled by ancient buildings that were untouched by the war.  Most of the buildings were of masonry construction. Some were very ornate.  Sometime in the early afternoon I came upon a huge cathedral.  There were lots of statues around as I circled the building admiring the architecture and the size of it.  I had never seen a church building as large as this one.  Finally I came to what appeared to be the front of the building.  There were two large doors that appeared to open from the center with one swinging to the right and one swinging to the left.  I walked up the steps and found the door unlocked.

  As I entered there was a vestibule as large as the Harlan Baptist Church in Harlan.  Another door opened into a huge sanctuary.  It appeared that it could seat over a thousand people.  I sat down on the back row of the church.  there was a quietness that was very peaceful.  There was a reverence about the church that suggested worship.  As I sat there I began to pray.  I prayed for the families of Roger Paul and Tony Killion.  I prayed for Jim Callebs wherever he might be.  At last I prayed for myself.  I poured out a confession of the things I had done to my fellow man.  I asked God why he had sent me where I had been.  I confessed to God about my identity problem.  I confessed to God about the beast with me that had given me great abilities in battle and had taken away my fear.  I prayed for courage to face the future.  As I prayed, somehow I thought of the brutality of the Nazis as they sought to conquer the world.  I thought of the gas chambers and crematoriums at the Nazi prison camps.  I thought of the piles of naked human bodies waiting to be cremated even as the liberating US soldiers bore down on the camps.  At last I thought of that pile of bodies of small children.

What had gone wrong with the world, I pondered.  An inspired answer came to mind.  What had gone wrong was when mortal man had decided to play God.  Hitler had declared the Geman people to be the super race of the world.  As the super race, they were not bound by the rules and laws that the other nations of the world observed.  Hitler and the Nazis decided who would live and who would die.  When they usurped the power of God, the world entered one of its darkest ages.  The cleansing had come at great price.  In the end over a quarter of a million American families had laid a son upon the cleansing altar.  Other nations had paid a far higher price.

As I paryed and meditated there in the cathedral a great feeling of peace came over me.  In a world that had lost its way I was one of the ones chosen to once again help find the light of God's day.  The spirit of that place seemed to say, "You have a new identity.  You will never be the same as you once were.  You will be different and a better servant of the world because of what you have done."

It was almost dark when I left the church.  I made my way back to the hotel in time for supper.  I sensed as I walked back that I had been another defining moment of my life.
                                          .Taken from A Name In the Sand


In 1996, Gene and Emily returned to Europe and visited many sites where he had been during WWII.  At that time Tim and Marghie Edwards were living and working in Orleans; Gene and Emily stayed with them during part of that trip.  Here's Tim's remembrance ...

Marghie and I were honored to have Uncle Gene and Aunt Emily visit us in Orleans in 1996.  I had a good time showing them around the historic sites of the Loire Valley.  Sadly I did not have time to accompany them on their visits to Normandy or Belgium. One of the sites we visited was the Sainte-Croix Cathedral in Orleans. While I appreciated it for its cultural, and historical significance, I was not aware of how important it was to Uncle Gene on a personal and spiritual level until much later.