Mount Pleasant Magazine Nov/Dec 2016

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bilia, including newspaper clippings, photos, flags and the
boots the general was wearing when an auto accident took
his life. A small St. Christopher medal is embedded in the
side of the heel of each boot, and dirt and stones from
Mannheim, Germany, where the accident occurred, are
still stuck to the soles.
Only the shoelaces are not authentic, which Waters
regrets.
“The laces are not original. They cut the originals off to
get the boots off his feet after the accident,” he explained.
Waters has also visited a camp in Poland where his
father was held as a POW during World War II in an
YOUR
COMMUNITY
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effort to convince the
Polish government to
let the community of
Szubin build a Hall
of Remembrance
there. The camp is
currently the site of a
reform school for kids
who have committed
crimes; they would
provide the labor to
build the memorial.
He also visited
Flossenburg, Germany,
around five years ago
with nine survivors
of the Nazi concen-
tration camp built
there in 1938. He was
afraid that his fellow
travelers would resent
him because Patton
used Germans to help
run the country after the Nazis were defeated, but, as it
turned out, his concerns were entirely unfounded.
It seems, according to Waters, that his familial rela-
tionship with Gen. George S. Patton has been much more
a blessing than a curse. He recalled meeting a man not
long ago who told him: “I’m only here because of your
grandfather. He kept us moving. If we had stopped, I
would have died.”
“I guess I look a little like him,” Waters concluded. “It’s
an honor. You get to meet people who admired him. The
opportunity you have is to express the gratitude he had for
the 400,000 men who served with him.”
Patton’s footlocker arrived in the Waters home in 1945, complete with war-related gifts for his grandchildren.
Patton’s dog, Willie, was there as well.
Photo courtesy of Pat Waters.
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