With every blast, the ground shook, the windows rattled, and the lamp overhead began to swing again. The crumbled wall revealed a scene: a family and neighbors huddling in a basement, a makeshift common bedroom and kitchen where the residents of the house could take shelter for long periods of time.
Outside were flashes of light, occasional groups of footsteps, rapid chains of flak fire, and deafening, heart-wrenching booms. With every silence from each intense barrage, were low murmurs and the baby next door crying, with her mother cooing her gently.
This wasn’t a scene I lived through, but one I experienced at the 101st Airborne Museum in Bastogne in the bombing simulator in the basement.
The museum is singly one of the best war museums I’ve been to. Dedicated specifically to the 101st Airborne’s actions in the Battle of the Bulge, it showcased stories, tactics, weaponry, and the uniforms used during that terrible moment in history.
The Battle of the Bulge
In December 1944, the Nazi Germans were getting desperate and Hitler was in a near panic. The Americans, British, and French Resistance were rolling through Northern France and Belgium. The Americans, primarily the 101st Airborne, had temporarily set up a base in Bastogne, with shipping routes from Antwerp carrying supplies to feed the various avenues of advance.
Hitler wanted to take Antwerp in a devastating blow against the Allied supply chain—a last ditch effort to bring the Allies to the negotiating table and obtain a peace treaty in Hitler’s favor. He was all about getting peace, after all. Most dictators are in order to consolidate their winnings before pushing further.
The Americans had gone through a series of blunders in evaluating their position—the speed of their advance and the bad weather led them to think there weren’t any Germans nearby. That was a bit of an underestimation. The Germans had amassed nearly half a million soldiers, with over 4,000 tanks and artillery. They went on full Blitzkrieg mode on December 24th, sending a very unfriendly Christmas present by way of a flock of Junker 88 bombers demolishing Bastogne and its area in preparation for the offensive.
The battle was the largest fought by the Americans in World War II and led to the third-highest casualties of any battle in American history. The line of battle stretched on for an incredible 85 miles, nearly every bit of inch engaged in combat. A truly massive attack.
The 101st Airborne
This famous division was originally born out of World War I, but “got its wings” in 1942, where they had made their names for themselves by parachuting past enemy lines. They were used extensively in Operation Overlord and took part in the liberation of Belgium and the Netherlands, and obviously the Battle of the Bulge.
The arrival into Europe was one of the more intense occasions of the war, when they were dropped behind the German lines with the task of knocking them out and giving the boys floating in an easier arrival on the beach.
The Museum
The building itself was the former officers mess of the Belgian Army, built in 1936. Later used by the occupying German forces as housing for lower officers, after the battle it became a hospital ran by the Red Cross. With this war history, along with just the fact the building survived, it became of interest to two Belgians, Hans and Mieke van Kessel, who bought it and turned it into the museum in 2009.
It’s not a big place. Just three floors with a few rooms on each floor, and it leans towards the pricey side (14 euros each), but it is definitely worth both the trip and the money.
The first room opens up with a big battle map, like you might see in a war movie, with all the pieces laid out Axis & Allies fashion around Bastogne. Cases around display various artifacts, from some personal possessions and letters to one of General Patton’s uniforms.
Upstairs is where it starts to get interesting though. Rather than just standard case layouts, the museum curators decided upon full, life-sized dioramas of action. There are Nazis in an office, Wehrmacht in a barn machine gun nest, some Americans talking to a priest in an office, a brasserie with some men on leave. It was truly a detailed and explicit way to arrange all the leftover paraphernalia from the war.
Not for kids
Already with the soundtrack of bomber planes and distant explosions, my kiddo was getting nervous at the intensity of it. When you finally enter one hiding area of American soldiers, you hear nearby blasts and reports of sniper fire from one mannikin perched in the rafters above.
That was when we made the parentally responsible decision to go downstairs in turns. One of us would hang out with the kid and play with his dinos on the war map while the other would descend into more hellish themes—and the bombing simulation.
Down the hatch
In the bottom floor, things get grisly. One diorama is an interrogation of a family gone wrong, ending in Nazis murdering the inhabitants. Another is a triage station, blood spilling out of a mannikin’s leg while his comrades hold him down and ready for amputation. The bombing sounds are more intense here, partly because the simulation room is on this floor.
And then there’s the simulation room. It takes about 10 minutes. First you enter a small basement room, with two benches along each wall, an old chandelier overhead, and a table with a decorative ashtray (no smoking please!). And then it begins.
Here are some highlights (turn up the volume for the full experience):
Proud to be an American
It’s a strange experience in Bastogne when you step out of your car as an American. There are American flags on various shops on the streets, with American-themed museums as well. A huge American flag hangs from the town hall, frozen in time even as the wind blows. But there’s something odd about it all, a kind of Hollywood gloss coating everything like in a Wild West set for a Deadwood Dick adaptation. The flags mostly drape over souvenir shops selling World War II trinkets, with large yellow tin boards of women showing their biceps saying, “We Can Do It!”
But looking at the Sherman tank on the corner of the road, there is a kind of pride that I feel. Knowing that not only did my country do something good, but something rather extraordinary, playing a pivotal role against an overwhelming evil, but carrying on as a beacon of hope against a growing Red darkness that stretched across the world.
And I can’t say I truly understood that side of things until I went out and traveled. The US might always be acting in its own interests—but this is a normal thing, not sure why everyone else gets a pass and not the US—but sometimes in acting out those interests, it does a lot of great stuff.
Thoughts on foreign aid
Years ago, driving past the birthplace of Jesus in the West Bank, I couldn’t help but notice the USAID sign advertising that funds both helped refurbish the plaza in front and the road. Walking with a UNDP worker at an IDP camp and seeing how USAID funds helped build toilets. Then while I was in Peace Corps, piecing together recovered computer parts to build enough for an Internet lab in the youth center (in the days before mobiles brought ubiquitous access).
We’ve done a lot of good in the world. But now that’s being quickly canceled, by the same people who lament us being the “world police”. And I get that, because it all feels like the same “American Empire” BS, and I myself was out protesting against Bush and the Iraq War every chance I got.
But the security and goodwill it takes to ensure the fairly comfortable lives, cheap oil, and overnight Amazon shipping of any object imaginable is absolutely immense.
Fear and loved
Security and goodwill. Both are necessary. When Yemeni terrorists launch rockets at shipping containers, companies reroute from Suez to all the way around Africa, meaning your Temu order is going to be another week later. When Russia storms the front and pierces through Europe’s defenses, the United States’ most profitable market vanishes overnight. When China invades Taiwan, say goodbye to the iPhone 26. The price of flashy toys and convenient living IS Empire, whether you like it or not.
And security is only one prong. As the great philosopher of manipulation Machiavelli writes, the best is to be both feared AND loved.
Goodwill can ensure that there are those people in Yemen are willing and capable of standing up against the rebels. It can help reduce the amount of terrorists wantonly killing Israeli civilians that would lead to an even worse ethnic cleansing campaign than one our president is advertising for on tv. It can mean favorable trading conditions, it can mean willing cooperation in endless affairs. It can mean people wanting to help the United States in various small ways (that add up) just because they like what it stands for.
And both that security and goodwill inspire the world. The people who live on the periphery of Russia today have hearts swelling with hope because of the dream that the United States once sold. And maybe it’s not as glamorous as the television movie sets, but it is what it is, and it’s better than living under Vova’s cruel reign.
A mirror darkly
The United States has a dark reflection in Russia, and in many ways we’re quite alike. We both tend to have a mentality of “bigger is better”, we both were superpowers, we both like to take pictures of 12 year olds with automatic weapons, and we both talk about tradition as if we really meant it, besides some sort of illusory cocktail to keep the people drunk on the dream.
And what’s even more: we both defeated the Nazis.
And we both use that defeat to justify just about every other ill that our society did.
Russians claim the USSR couldn’t have been that bad, because they defeated the Nazis. Never ming the GULag.
And Americans claim the US couldn’t have been that bad, because they defeated the Nazis. Never mind slavery and Jim Crowe laws and the Tuskegee Airmen.
We’ve done a lot of bad shit. And instead of looking at that bad shit, and asking why and how do we prevent that again, and how do we truly live up to the standard that we claim we have… we’d rather cheer over eliminating dubious programs that probably didn’t exist but were the result of an 18-year-old Big Dick kekker not knowing how to read a report.
But here we are. Instead of self-improvement, we’ll just spray the champagne and masturbate all over the flag.
Well, I apologize for getting political here. I guess seeing the flag all over the place in that little Belgian town brought out the feels in me. Also I was bitter that I missed getting to the tank museum by ten minutes, and thus didn’t get to see the famous “First in Bastogne” Cobra King tank. C’est la vie.
