RUSK, William Porter - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

My father was fighting on the front lines in France. The day before Christmas a big shell went off right by him, knocking him into a concussion. He lay unconscious for several hours on the cold, wet ground. His feet froze so much they turned black. Dan Hughes, a medic, who was also from Crawfordsville happened to see him lying there. Up until that time, they were both unaware that the other one was in the same area.

When Dan saw Bill, he said, "Captain, this man's from Crawfordsville. We've got to take good care of him." He was in a field hospital for two days, then moved to a hospital in Barr, France. It wasn't until he had been in the hospital for several days and happened to be reading a copy of Stars and Stripes, that he realized he had been fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. He was moved to the 40th General Hospital in England with bleeding ears, frozen feet and a serious concussion and there received a Purple Heart. He later served as an MP in Belgium where he was assigned to grave registration. His duty there was to dig up soldiers and identify them.

He reenlisted at the age of 20 and received a 90-day furlough. Upon arriving back home, he learned that his father had passed away a month earlier. The Red Cross had tried unsuccessfully to locate him with the news. After his dependency (his mother) honorable discharge May 23, 1946, he married his childhood girlfriend Bobbie Ellis in September. They have five children, eight grandchildren and one great grandchild.

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Additional information: Bill was born 4 October 1925 in Browns Valley, Montgomery County, Indiana. As per above, he married Bobbie 6 September 1946 at 12:30 p.m. the fourth child of the couple. His father was 45 and mother age 38 at the time, and Dr. H.H. Isaacs of Waveland was the attending physician. Bill passed away on the 24th day of March in 2001 of heart disease. He was the son of John Terrence Rusk and Monna M. Porter, thus his middle name. He owned a thriving construction business for many years. He is truly sadly missed by his family and friends.

On Bill's registration to join the Army, It says he was 86" tall and weighed 750 # - I think some ones indexing was a big whacky :( :)