Albie married into our family in the early 1960s (he married my aunt Lois, my mother’s sister).  Albie was from Kingston, PA which he always referred to as “the garden spot of the world”.  He loved all sports but his two favorites were football and baseball and about the only time he would leave Kingston would be to attend the Army-Navy football game at West Point NY.

Albie’s unit served under Patton as part of the 10th Armored Division during the Battle of the Bulge. The 11th Tank Battalion had 81mm mortars mounted in half-tracks and provided fire support to the infantry, so they typically stayed within a mile or two of the front lines.

Albie had been in the vending machine business before volunteering for the Army. He told me that while overseas he and his buddies traded cigarettes for pistols and by the end of “the Bulge” there were over 125 Lugers, P38s and PPKs in the floorboard of their half-track. Albie said the going exchange rate was 3-5 American cigarettes per pistol.

Albie talked about the “crack” (sound) German 88mm rounds made when passing close by. Many years after the war he went back to the armor school at Fort Knox to see a captured Tiger Tank.

During that same trip Albie and Lois came to NC to visit us one for a few days.  When he left his trunk was filled to capacity with cartons of cigarettes and cases of Coors beer (at the time NC cigarettes were 1/3 the price of the same brands in PA and Coors beer was not available there at all).

Albie and Lois and grandmother Mildrew Agnew were great to us kids anytime we went to PA to visit them.  They would always take us to all the amusement parks in the area - Harvey’s Lake, Rocky Glen, and San Souci.  Thanks Albie!

And thanks to Lois, Albie’s framed Eisenhower jacket graces the wall in my home office.