Visit with Shirley. Kay was hungry.

The visit today was by being picked up by Colleen, Joe and Shirley.  They got in this afternoon and I went with them to get Kay to go out and eat.  I don't know if she had eaten early but when we got to the Old Country Buffet she ate like she had had nothing to eat.  I put my arm around her yesterday and felt her ribs and they seemed to be just skin and bones.  Like she felt when she was 16 years old and weighed 80 pounds.  I am really unhappy about this.  She ate well at the OCB I am sure she and the others at the facility just don't eat because of the kind of food they are  fed there.  It's a tasteless bland diet done, because for some reasons these institutions seem to cook food this way. I can understand that done here but where Kay is they should encourage them to eat.  Actually most of it is brought in by venders, bland and tasteless.  They do this salt free of course in spite Government survey a year or so ago of about 50,000 people that people on a low salt diet didn't live a day longer than those with normal salt intake. If you have ever been required to eat a bland diet you know how hard it is to want to eat like you do normally.  If you go to an institution where they care for the people with dementia you DO NOT  find any overweight people.  At least in the one where Kay is.  I'm guessing there are about 50 people there. I can not prove it, at least yet,  that not wanting to eat tasteless food is the reason everyone is the way they are. Not wanting to eat.   But I am going by the food I eat here at this place.  If they would cook food to make them  want to eat it at the dementia place the patients would not go around hungry all the time. . Every time I go Kay seems to be hungry.  I do not bring her food other than a little treat like a couple truffles and a graham cracker.   Sometimes a soda cracker.  It is the same company that owns both places so they get the food from the same vendors.  I have not paid particular attention to this up until today as  I just learned the other day that Kay had lost about 20 pounds since she went there to live.  The last time I knew her weight it was about 113 or 110 I don't remember for sure as things like I am talking about now I was not thinking about then.  But when she lived with me and she got weighted at the doctor  she weighed 110 to 113.  The reason I am bringing this up now is because if she eats when she is with me that means she is hungry. I am worried about her hurting and she can not tell me about it and I am also worried that she is also hungry.  She can not tell us about that.  Neither can the others at the facility and I am convinced that is the reason they are thin.  They are hungry and can not tell the caregivers there that they are  hungry. When I was a little kid about 6 or 7 in the depression I went to bed hungry.  I can tell you it is no fun to go to bed hungry. People over here at the other facility are not thin or underfed because they have the mental ability to eat in spite of the bland food.  The portions here are normally huge.  Much larger than needed for people who do not do a lot of exercising.   

 Friends and relatives who think the way I do about not wanting Kay to go hungry and want to talk to the people at the facility to put some heat on them, leave a comment, if you do not have my email address.  You could talk talk to them.  Perhaps there is another reason for people going hungry, losing weight, we don't know about.  It is most common for people with dementia to just stop eating and  die.  Kay is way before that but that is the way they do it. But while Kay is here I want her to be as comfortable as possible. That means not hungry.

   

 

Trip to Fred Meyer today

Kay seemed pretty out of it today but around 1:00 p I decided to get her out of the house and go to Fred Meyer for something to eat.  We sat there she picking at her food and I reading Time magazine.  She said she had to get to the bathroom as we had a mess on the table I decided to take her there to the restroom.  Usually I would just go home as it is just a couple minutes away.  However when we got to the restroom  I tried to tell her to go to that door to get to the restroom which took some time for her to understand.  I was then worried if she would be able to find her way out when she was finished.  After a while I had ask a lady going to to check on her.  Which she did and Kay came out under her own power.  Very depressing.  Later in the afternoon at home she  asked if I had new shoes. Which I do having bought then either yesterday or the day before.  That raised my spirits considerably. They were white sneakers whereas I have been wearing black so perhaps not that all significant. But to recognize them at all was something I think. At another time I asked her if she was hungry but did not know.  




Bill Sheldon June 17, 1920. April 4, 2001. Four years in the 3rd Infantry Division WW2 His story. Find it at Four years in the 3rd Inf in WW2
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Chapter 13: Salzburg

    You can see a larger picture by clicking on the picture

I was sent to Salzburg from Worms. By truck I am sure although I don't remember the actual ride. What I mean is I don't remember riding in a truck from Worms to Salzburg. I do remember when we were on the way to Salzburg Austria we passed by some parked jets off the autobahn. The Germans used the autobahn instead of an airfield in order to hide the jets. Much easier to hide them from American planes.

I have not been able to locate the picture of me and the others who occupied a tent while waiting for assignment there at worms. The picture was taken the day the war ended in Europe.

Shortly after the war ended there was a big push to get the troops home. Some had been overseas for 3 years without a break. No six months tour then home. You have to remember that in those days and the nature of the war when you went overseas you stayed there unless there was a death in the family and there was a way to get home. Otherwise you stayed. The Third Division men where I went next in Salzburg had been overseas from 1942 when it landed in North Africa. So the men there stayed overseas for more than 3 years without a break. The furrow about spending a year in Iraq I don't understand. Except they think the war on Terror might last 20 or 30 years. That might make you give pause. An infantryman in ww2 was subjected to horror's equal to those in Iraq I would think. But in any case I am against all war. Don't call me one of the Greatest Generation just one of the greatest suckers. Pat Buchanan agrees with me that our entry into WW2 was not necessary. What does that do for Roosevelt's reputation if correct? The Japanese didn't just one day decide that they didn't have anything else to do and say to themselves. "Let' s go bomb Pearl Harbor that sounds like it might be fun." This does't mean I overlook the tremendous atrocities they committed in China and against Americans. Fusel wrote his book about "War Without Mercy" It's hard to make soldiers wage civilized war. Because by it's very nature war is an atrocity. Atrocity begats atrocity. On both sides.

But back to Austria. The Third Infantry in it's fight through Germany went through Munich, then outside Salzburg it captured Bertchesgarden and finally ended the war in Salzburg. The Third occupied a large area of course. Salzburg the central area because that is where the Generals wanted to be. Then the Artillery battalions spread out to the surrounding towns

As they began sending the guys home with the most points who had been away for 3 years they began replacing them with us guys in the replacment depots. So within about a week I was sent as a replacement to Salzburg. Assigned to HQ Battery, Division Artillery Headquarters. (Divarty) You can bet Generals always pick the best for themselves. In this case Divarty was somewhere on the edge of Salzburg. When they captured Salzburg they wanted this house so ordered the people out to make room for us. The commander had given them 45 minutes to vacate and when they complained that was not enough time they were told you have 10 minutes instead. Of course that meant everything in the house was still there when I got there. A number of us soldiers occupied the house.

Allowing 10 minutes to vacate their homes seemed be pretty standard. I just read yesterday in an article about another instance when the people got 10 minutes to vacate under similar circumstances. It is hard to imagine the immense power the soldier of an occupying army feels protected as he is from any retribution by the subjected population. This should be pretty obvious from what is going on in Iraq. When you can at a whim, without fear of punishment shoot to kill, This is not the soldiers doing really. These are conditions imposed on him by the circumstances.

Even by the time I got to Salzburg we still carried our carbines where ever we went because the army didn't know the extent of opposition we might expect. Eventually they took them away and we went unarmed when it became obvious that there was to be no armed opposition. That the war had really ended.

For a considerable time the US Army was a shambles. New untried and untrained replacements replaced the best army in the world. The 3rd infantry division was the best of the best. The most combat experienced. They talk of Normandy landings but the 3rd had made 5 amphibiousAnzio. The 3rd was one of the combat outfits that spent the most time in combat and suffered more casualties than almost any other outfit. About 33,000 casualties. Anyway,we new replacements took advantage of this to make do with our situation. There was lots to do but not training. Disarming the Germans and Austrians for one. Collecting arms and finally destroying them. As a radio operator there was not much for me to do in that line of work. So I ran an errand occasionally. Or took something to the local dump. There were a lot of hungry Austrians and we always collected a crowd when we took things to the dump. Here is a poor picture of me at the dump. Sorry I was so slumped over. But a better one with kids climbing all over the truck. The other radio operators had not been transferred out yet so there was no radio operating for me. The artillery battalions occupied various town around Salzburg. The 3rd Inf. occupied Salzburg. The Commanding General Collins in a hotel in Salzbug.




During a long period the effeciency was next to zero. It was the better part of a year before the army really began training again. It's a good thing we didn't have a shooting war with the Russians because you can be sure they didn't disarm as we did.