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The 101st Airborne was in Bastogne. Vincent Speranza, who lives in Auburn, was with them. He had seen a lot of his buddies killed and wounded in Bastogne. Many of the wounded were getting treatment on a church floor. That included his friend, Joe Willis.
"I found him," Vince recalls, "and asked 'How you doin?' He said, "I got a couple pieces of shrapnel in my leg. It's not too bad. I asked if there was anything I could do for him. He said, 'Yeah, go find me something to drink.'"
Easier said than done in a town under siege. Vince left the church and walked around until he found a partially bombed-out tavern. He went in, pulled the tap behind the bar and was surprised to see beer come out. Wouldn't you agree that beer is something to drink?
Vince took off his helmet and filled it with beer, then went back to the church. But when the other wounded men near Joe saw what Vince had, they all wanted some. Vince had to go back to the church to fill up his helmet with beer again.
But he returned to the church to find the regimental surgeon, a major by the way, asked him what he thought he was doing. "Giving aid and comfort to the wounded," Vince replied. Not a bad answer. But not good enough.

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And that is where the story would have ended had it not been for the commemoration in Bastogne a year ago of the 65th anniversary of the battle. Vince traveled there for the events, including visiting the museum dedicated to the siege.


While there, he met two young soldiers. One was a Belgian tank commander, Johnny Bona. The other was Dutch Army officer Marco Killian. As they were having lunch together, Vince told the story of his helmet full of beer. When they heard it, their jaws dropped.
"You were the GI who gave beer to the wounded?" they told him. "You're famous in Europe!"
Vince didn't know what they were talking about. So the two men called a waiter over and ordered some Airborne Beer.

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