"I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa by Charles Brandt

while you were digging, or maybe if you cooperated and dug your own grave you’d get a good clean hit without any brutality or suffering. By this time, I thought nothing of doing what I had to do.
    From the Harz Mountains we made a right turn and kept on heading in a direct line south in Germany, taking Bamberg and then Nuremberg. That town had been practically bombed to the ground. Nuremberg had been the place where Hitler held all his big rallies. Every single symbol of the Nazis that survived the bombing was systematically destroyed.
    Our goal was Munich in Bavaria in southern Germany, the town where Hitler had gotten his start in a beer hall. But on the way, we made a stop to liberate the concentration camp at Dachau. ”
     
     
     
    The Combat Report states that inside the camp there were “some 1,000 bodies…. Gas chamber and crematoriums were conveniently side-by-side. Clothing, shoes, and bodies were stacked alike in neat and orderly piles.”
     
     
     
    “ We had heard rumors about atrocities at the camps, but we were not prepared for what we were seeing and for the stench. If you see something like that it gets printed on your mind forever. That scene and that smell when you first saw it never goes away. The young, blond-haired German commander in charge of the camp and all his officers were loaded in jeeps and driven off. We heard gunfire in the distance. In short order all of the rest of them—about 500 German soldiers guarding Dachau—were taken care of by us. Some of the camp victims who had the strength borrowed our guns and did what they had to do. And nobody batted an eye when it was done.
    Right after that we marched down and took Munich, and about two weeks later the war in Europe ended with Germany’s unconditional surrender.
    All these years later and from stirring it up I started having dreams again about the combat, only the dreams were all mixed in with things I started doing for certain people after the war.
    I was discharged on October 24, 1945, a day before my twenty-fifth birthday, but only according to the calendar. ”

 
     
      chapter seven  
     
     
    Waking Up in America
     
    “ By coincidence I ran into my kid brother, Tom, on the dock in Havre de Grace, France, in October 1945. The war was over and we were both shipping back to Philly, but on separate ships. Tom had seen a little bit of combat. I said, “Hi, Tom.” He said, “Hi, Frank. You’ve changed! You’re not the same brother I remember from before the war.” I knew just what he meant. That’s what 411 days of combat does to you. He could see it on my face, maybe in my stare.
    Thinking about what my brother said to me on the dock in Havre de Grace makes me wonder if he was looking into my soul. I knew something was different about me. I didn’t care anymore about things. I had been through practically the whole war; what could anybody do to me? Somewhere overseas I had tightened up inside, and I never loosened up again. You get used to death. You get used to killing. Sure, you go out and have fun, but even that has an edge. Not to bellyache or anything, because I was one of the lucky ones to come out in one piece. But if I hadn’t volunteered for action I never would have seen any of what I saw or did any of what I had to do. I would have stayed in the States as an MP jitterbugging to “Tuxedo Junction.”
    You step on shore from overseas and everywhere you look you see Americans, and they’re not wearing a uniform, and they’re speaking English, and you get a big boost in morale.
    The Army gives you $100 a month for three months. The men who didn’t go seem to have all the good jobs and you just go back to where you came from and try to pick up where you left off. I went back to live with my parents in West Philly and back to Pearlstein’s to pick up where I left off as an apprentice. But I couldn’t handle being cooped up in a job after living outdoors all that time overseas. The Pearlstein family was good