The apartment we lived in had a coal furnace for our heat and it was located outside. There were many nights when I had to get up in the middle of the night to shovel more coal in the stove and bank the coal to keep it burning in order to keep us and the babies warm.

We also had a kerosene stove which we kept lit in the house and we often used it in the bath room, which was technically a room with a bath tub and a bidet, but no toilet, which was also outside. It was an experience to have to go outside to use the toilet, a hole in the ground, in the cold of winter.

And once when using the kerosene heater in the bath room, I was in the other room and heard a loud thud when Jane passed out on the bathroom floor because the heater had used up all the oxygen in the small room where she was giving the children their bath. They too were starting to pass out. I gave them all mouth-to-mouth and revived them. Jane learned about the danger of using that heater in a closed room and it almost killed her and the babies.

We also had a motor bike for transporation and later we bought our first car, which was a 1939 Simca in 1961, which cost me $25. The car worked the whole time we were there, but stopped working the week we left and no one would buy it from me so I ended up paying someone another $25 just to haul it away. Before we left France we bought a new Simca and had it shipped back to the states.

While I was stationed in France, I was shot at, when on the way to work one day. A bullet went through the windshield and into the front seat just inches from my son, Johnny. The Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) had many such cases but very little could be done to stop this latest trend in violence against American soldiers in France. French soldiers returning from Algeria didn't like us because American soldiers were sleeping with their women and Americans are loud and everytime someone does something stupid it reflects on everyone.

We lost our son, Daniel in an automobile accident while we were there. And we sued the Frenchman, who was speeding in a school zone and the caused the accident but I was pressured by my government to drop the litigation because of the sensitive nature of our presence there. France withdrew from the integrated military command of NATO in 1966, although it remained a member of the organization. Now with France's criticism of the Bush administration and the British in Iraq ironically it has been suggested that France ought to be kicked out of NATO (since Jack Straw mentioned that France might be kicked out of NATO over the whole Iraq thing).

The army buried my son in a national cemetery in N.J. but did very little else to comfort us or help us overcome our loss. While we had a French lawyer and a JAG lawyer, the government neglected paying the French lawyer and I received the bills after we were shipped back to the states.

It is a very devastating time for us, losing a child, and my wife and I had a difficult time adjusting to our loss. She and I split up for several months and she went to stay with friends. It was a very hard time for us and the only time in our marriage that we were separated by choice. The events during and leading up to all this are too painful to recall here. Our reconciliation and the healing process was a growing and learning experience and it made our love stronger.