Less Than Six Degrees Between Me and a Soldier at the Battle of Remagen
Claude Musgrove took this picture of the famous Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany. The smoke under and behind the bridge is from German artillery rounds trying to destroy the miraculously surviving link that let Allied forces cross the river.
Photo Credit: Claude Musgrove, U.S Army photographer, 164th Engineer Combat Battalion
I was born on the 7th of March 1945. The same day that the 9th Armored Division of the U.S. First Army came upon the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, one of the last bridges across the Rhine that was still standing despite German attempts to blow up it up with more than three tons of explosives, only a portion of which detonated.
Many historians write that the unexpected capture of this bridge likely shortened World War II in Europe.
Whenever someone asks me my date of birth I usually reply, "March 7th, 1945, the same day the Battle of Remagen started which led to the early end of WWII in Europe."
Many times when I make this announcement I get a "Hmmm." I sometimes wonder what children who were born on 9/11 say when announcing their birth date. And what response?
But back to the point of this article. I have no doubt that most of my readers have read about the Six degrees of separation - the theory that everyone and everything is six or fewer persons away from any other person in the world.
A few days ago I was at an Apple store in Shorthills, N.J. I found out that only one person was between me and someone who fought at the Battle of Remagen that very day. When an Apple employee, let me call him Jake, asked my date of birth I went into my routine and before I could get to "...early end of WWII in Europe," the employee blurted out, "Hey, my 90 year-old grandfather was at Remagen that very day."
Wow, so only one person between me and someone who fought at Remagen on my birth date.
Of course I must have made that announcement more than a thousand times before I found someone with so few degrees of separation to that event. Let me say that I've been to that Apple store dozens of times in the past year and it's very likely that I met someone who knew Jake but didn't know about Jake's grandfather's war record and so said nothing when I mentioned my birth date.
Imagine if we had perfect knowledge: every day walking on the street would be, "Tell your mother-in-law to say hi to Scarlett Johannson," or "Please ask your third cousin if he knows when Kim Jong-un will fire off another missile."
