Well, 60 years later, Willie and Joe have not only emerged from the foxholes, but have been transformed into Hollywood-style celebrities — minus Hollywood pay, of course.

On the street where Adolf Hitler once rode by, it was almost impossible for American soldiers to ride or walk the streets of Bastogne without being accosted for handshakes, to autograph books, t-shirts, (often while being worn), and pose for group photos; to be quizzed on details of battles; and, sometimes, quizzed whether they knew George Patton. (Never met the man, and if I did he would have profanely addressed my Willie and Joe appearance.)

Those celebratory experiences, plus the profusion of media, rendered the Bulge, the most punishing battle in history, into near-legendary status during the two weeks I spent in Belgium before Christmas. Amid the parades and international hoopla in downtown Bastogne, I was approached by a Parisian television crew seeking wartime recollections. I suggested driving to a village outside Bastogne known as Moircy, where, 60 years ago, my then-untested unit, the 87th Infantry Division, in one of its first attacks, sustained heavy casualties among teenaged riflemen.

The Parisian journalists located an old woman who had once watched from her cellar as those infantrymen attacked while wearing dark overcoats that offered easy targets against the snow. Throwing her arms around me, “Americain, Americain”, she exclaimed along with other French outpourings.

I also suggested a visit to the tiny, heavily-forested village of Tillet, tucked into the Ardennes hills. Here in 1945, young Curtis Shoup of North Scriba, N.Y., had seized a Browning Automatic Rifle, crawled on an icy street, fired and killed one nest of enemy machinegunners. After being wounded in both legs, he dragged himself on the icy ground and threw a grenade, wiping out the second machinegun nest. Then, helpless and lying in the road, he was killed by a German sniper.

He was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest form of valorous recognition. To this day, any recollection of this deed powerfully affects all who served with him.

I sincerely hope the viewers who watched Parisian as well as European satellite television grasped the bitter reality behind the giddy demonstrations, the spectacular day and night parades, and the launch of walnuts from the Bastogne City Hall, signifying Gen. McAuliffe’s disdainful rejection of the German surrender demand with the word “Nuts”.

In 1945, shortly after the largest, longest and bloodiest battle in American history had concluded with 81,000 American casualties, George Patton wrote to the VIIIth Corps of which I was a member: “None of us will ever forget the stark valor with which you and your Corps contested every foot of ground during Von Rundstedt’s attack.”

Is that assertion still true today? Will none of us ever forget? Or will the transformation to Hollywood-style hoopla continue and ultimately overtake the bitter reality?