In October of 1944, as Hitler was planning his breakout to Antwerp--his last ditch effort to defeat the allied forces--his main problem was how to secure the bridges between Ardennes and Antwerp. To this end, he called upon one of the most dangerous men in Europe, SS Lt Col Otto Skorzeny. Hitler told Skorzeny that he wanted to paralyze the allies long enough to finish developing his terrible weapons that he planned to use against the Allies and therefore win the war.

Hitler ordered Skorzeny to organize and train 3000 loyal brave men to infiltrate the Allied lines and, dressed in American Army uniforms, disrupt the Allied reaction to the German push through the Ardennes. These men would act as spies, saboteurs and spreaders of demoralization. They were to seize and hold the bridges over the Meuse for the main body to cross.

Within two months, Skorzeny’s men were ready. He had taught them how to act American, how to open a pack of cigarettes the American way, how to swear, and how to act “un-militarily”—no heel clicking when coming to attention. They then brazenly entered the American lines with stolen American jeeps and began their secret operation to disrupt and destroy.

There is enough recorded history to show that these men were successful in their operation, directing convoys the wrong way, spreading rumors and lies to demoralize the American GI, even causing Eisenhower’s staff to seclude him for ten days against the possibility of assassination. 

In the end, however, the whole operation became known to American leadership and the Americans searched everyone they were suspicious of. Some of Skorzeny’s men were killed in battle and some were captured. It is not know how many were killed in battle but we do know what happened to 130 of them that were captured and imprisoned. On Dec 22, 1944, all 130 were brought before First Army tribunal and found guilty of “violating the laws of war in wearing the enemy’s uniform behind his lines to deceive and commit espionage and sabotage.” All 130 were executed by firing squad after the trial.

That’s how you deal with the enemy within your borders.

It was the winter from hell. Temperatures below zero, snow up to the men’s knees and blinding snow storm blizzards. It was, by all accounts, the worst winter in Europe in centuries. To make matters worse, January 1945, had been one of the worst months of fighting that the European Theater had seen. The Allied Army, after being caught by surprise and losing ground to Hitler’s forces in the Battle of the Bulge had fought back to regain all the ground that had been lost. Slowly, yard by freezing yard, they had taken back land that had already been won, two months ago, and then lost. Finally at the end of January they stood on the edge of Germany, right up against the Siegfried line.

It had been horrifyingly hard work--sleepless 20 below zero nights with inadequate protection from the cold, exhausting assaults through knee-deep crusted snow against massive light arms and armored resistance, hand to hand combat in many cases, and then the impossible task of digging into the frozen ground to hunker down for another sleepless night before doing it all again the next day.

It was an offensive strategy that Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton all believed in so strongly that against all human reasonableness, they pressured the men beyond belief to perform acts of extreme heroism, courage, commitment, that lesser men would have given up on long ago. Why Eisenhower did this is a lesson to us today that we must understand.

There is no doubt that Eisenhower could have stopped his offensive assaults when he hit the Siegfried Line. A massive protective barrier, it gave the Germans the cover they needed to regroup. No reasonable military person would have thought it wrong to stop the offense, rebuild the lines, replace the tired, hungry and freezing veterans with new blood, and strengthen the weak spots in preparation for a spring final assault upon Germany. But Eisenhower had played football and everyone that has ever played the game knows the one hard and fast rule…The best defense is a good offense!!  And so, with exhausted men, in icy cold conditions, he ordered the offensive assault on the Siegfried Line.

It was Patton that said it best—“In war, the only sure defense is offense, and the efficiency of offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it.”  And so the American army slogged forward, bone tired, famished, battle weary and frozen, and eventually pushed the Germans all the way back to Berlin.

Today, in the war on terror, it would be good to know that our commander-in-chief and our military leaders all know and understand this principle. It would be even better for our safety and security if the American public knew this and believed in it. If they don’t, we are in for failure after failure in our attempts to defeat the terrorists until such time as someone comes along who does believe in it and crushes the terrorists in an overwhelming offense. 

So instead of chanting “Defense, Defense” as the fans do at football and basketball games, we need to start chanting—“Offense, Offense!!!  If we don't, prepare to lose ground to the terrorists....

America has one major weakness. This weakness goes beyond the commander in chief and the military leadership. Every single one of us in the western world has this weakness and it may be the downfall of our civilization as we know it.

To understand what this weakness is, go back 64 years to early December 1944.  The Allies, poised on the German border, were re-supplying themselves, resting from some horrible battles, and generally leaving the Germans alone for the winter. 

Early one frosty morning Ike invited Omar Bradley to his headquarters to discuss the allied situation along the front. Between the two of them, two of the best logical military minds our country has ever produced…between the two of them, they decided, after reviewing the whole situation and much discussion, that even though the Americans were weak at the Ardennes Forest section of the front, Hitler would never mount a counterattack through the Ardennes because the forest presented almost impossible conditions.   

Eisenhower knew that the Germans could not supply and support a major offensive on the winter roads in the Ardennes. Additionally, Eisenhower and Bradley felt that the newly formed Volksgrenadier divisions were not capable of offensive action in the winter. And thirdly, they knew, as military commanders, that the German military leadership knew how risky an offensive through the Ardennes would be. They knew that it would open the German army up for complete annihilation from the sides. So, at the end of the day, they both agreed that it would be a strategic mistake for the Germans to counter attack through the Ardennes.

Both Eisenhower and Bradley were absolutely correct. Their thinking was militarily sound. And every German officer on the other side of the Ardennes agreed with them. There was only one problem. Hitler did not agree with them. Eisenhower’s major error, which cost the Allies thousands of casualties, was that he did not take into account that the leader of Germany was a crazy, desperate lunatic. If he had looked at the situation from Hitler’s point of view, he would have come to a different conclusion.

What is the lesson in this 64 year old story? It is that we cannot make any conclusions about the enemies plans without understanding that they are crazy. Crazy with desperation, crazy with commitment to our destruction, crazy with hate…. If we do not begin to get inside the insanity of those that are trying to kill us, we will never be able to defend ourselves from their attacks.

I hope our military leadership knows this. I hope there are defensive plans out there built on the premise that our enemies are lunatics.  I hope Israel understands this point.  I hope there are agencies getting inside the heads of the leaders of Iran, North Korea, China, Hezbollah...well, you get the picture.  If not, well...Silence of the Lambs on a global scale….

God Help Us.

But stupidly, (knowing they had no intelligence), the intelligence gurus sent their intelligence reports up to the top military commanders, and even more stupidly, (knowing there was no intelligence), the top military commanders read the intelligence reports and believed them. 

On Dec 16, 1944, 21^st Army Group’s intelligence summary read—“The enemy … cannot stage major offensive operations.” The only problem was that on that very day, Germany was attacking the American lines at the Ardennes forest with the biggest, strongest offensive push they had ever used against the American forces. In what was to become known as the Battle of the Bulge, the Americans were caught completely off guard and suffered tremendous losses as the Germans pushed their way westward towards the Atlantic port of Antwerp.

Now they are all gone.  WWII veterans are dying at the rate of 2,000 a day, but that number means little to me.  The ones in my life have already gone.  I will miss them.  Thank you guys, not only for your sacrifices to ensure our freedoms, but for providing us with everything we could ever want while we were growing up.  In no small ways, you continued to sacrifice for our benefit, even after the war was over.