After battling through France and Belgium for weeks, Roscoe McMichael and the rest of the 30th Infantry Division had learned to expect almost anything. When they reached a small town in Holland, McMichael's 15-man "Special Troops" medical unit set up shop in a store.

The building had a large glass front window. One night, not long after his unit moved in, McMichael had just left the front room when a German buzz bomb fell from the sky and exploded right in front of the building. The blast shattered the window and blew glass splinters like shrapnel through the uniform and flesh of a GI that was still in the room.

McMichael raced back to tend to the man, then watched as the injured soldier was packed in an ambulance and hauled to safety over steep mountain roads.

"That was one close call," McMichael says. "If I'd still been in that room with the window, I'd have gotten it, too."

A day or two later McMichael looked up and saw an American plane coming in low and firing at American targets. He and the others soon realized it was a captured plane flown by a German pilot. American gunners shot the plane down just after it flew over McMichael's head.

"None of that was so unusual," he says. "It seemed like something happened just about every day over there."

McMichael was born in 1919 in the Raymond community. His father was a sharecropper who gave up farming when McMichael was a year old to take a job at the cotton mill in East Newnan. McMichael attended school though the seventh grade, and at age 14, instead of moving on to high school, went to work at the mill. He worked from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. for a dollar a day.

After a year of mill work, government regulations changed and no one under age 16 could work the textile mills. McMichael left the mill and worked the local peach orchards and did other odd jobs to help support the family. When he was old enough, he went back to the mill.

But life wasn't all work. McMichael played on the mill's baseball team and remembers one day when he got to a game late. The score was tied in the ninth inning and McMichael was put in to pinch hit. His home run won the game.

"I hit one out, and that was a lot of fun," he says.

After a few years, McMichael was looking for a change. He wasn't alone. In January 1941, he and nine other boys from Newnan joined the Army on a one-year enlistment. McMichael did basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, then went to Camp Blanding, Florida.

As 1941 neared an end, McMichael was looking forward to leaving the Army. But on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. All leaves were canceled and all enlistments extended indefinitely. McMichael had no idea what lay ahead.

"It was upsetting," he says. "I was ready to get turned loose and go home, and all of a sudden nobody knew what was going to happen. We just knew we were there as long as the Army wanted us."

McMichael soon found himself back at Fort Jackson as part of the 30th Infantry Division, which was being reactivated. He was named to the 105th Medical Detachment and learned how to provide medical treatment to troops in the field.

McMichael had specialized training as a dental assistant. He learned how to clean teeth, make impressions and provide badly-needed gum care. Oral hygiene was a big problem for troops in the field with poor diets and no way to properly clean their teeth.

The biggest problem was a gum disease nicknamed Trench Mouth during World War I. McMichael treated gum tissue with antibiotics, including a compound called gentian violet. He also did regular cleanings and even pulled a tooth or two.

McMichael started work as dental assistant but soon got his own chair so more troops could be treated during field maneuvers in Tennessee and South Carolina.

He received three months of specialized dental training at Walter Reed Army Hospital, then rejoined the 30th Division in Camp Atterbury, Indiana, where the division was preparing to head for Europe.

Before he left the States, McMichael joined a new unit called "Special Troops." The unit consisted of 15 highly-trained medical and dental personnel.

The 30th Division sailed for England in November 1943 and spent several months training in England. Then it was off to battle.

McMichael's unit landed on the beach at Normandy on June 10, 1944, just four days after the first assault wave of the D-Day invasion.

After scaling the cliffs at Omaha Beach, McMichael's unit realized they had become separated from the rest of the division. They spent the night in an apple orchard and the next day rejoined the division and started moving through the French countryside.

McMichael got his first real scare just outside one of the division's first objectives, the town of St. Lo. The Americans were moving toward a German-held bridge with orders to take it. German planes attacked as the American approached.

McMichael was near a small cemetery. A slab was missing from one grave and as the planes passed overhead with guns blazing, McMichael dove into the grave.

"I just wanted some protection," he says. "I didn't care who or what was in that grave."

McMichael's unit stayed near the front lines, treating troops and sending the more seriously injured back to larger hospitals. The conditions were always bad, the weather was brutal and a steady stream of casualties poured in.

"We treated broken bones and horrible wounds and everything else down to sore throats," McMichael says. "I'd fix that by spraying Merthiolate into their throats. Things got so busy that when people came in with trench mouth, the dentist would just pass them on to me. He'd say 'Mac can do more with them than I can.'"

McMichael's unit was on the front line for almost 11 months. There was rarely a dull day.

"From the time we hit the beach there was always something going on," McMichael says. "If we weren't fighting, there were rumors about where we were going and what we'd be doing, and nobody knew what was going on. We just made it day to day."

In early August, the 30th relieved the 1st Division at Mortain, France. Days later, a huge German force attacked but the 30th turned back the assault and headed east through Belgium. They entered Holland in early September and attacked the Siegfried Line in October, then crossed the Rhine and moved into the town of Aachen as the first American Division to enter Germany.

The 30th was pulled back into Belgium on Dec. 16, 1944, when German troops began an offensive push that became known as the Battle of the Bulge.

During heavy fighting near Stavelot, Belgium, the Allies were surprised when they encountered a load of German soldiers dressed in American uniforms attempting to cross the Stavelot bridge. Allies discovered the ruse, stopped the Germans and blew the bridge to keep German troops from crossing in a counterattack.

"Nobody was fooled for long that time," McMichael says. "But you could never tell what the Germans were going to do."

McMichael remembers at one point his unit passing by the bodies of more than a dozen dead American soldiers lying in a field. It was rumored the men had been executed by retreating Germans.

"It was awful seeing those boys," McMichael says. "But you were liable to see things like that every day. We just moved on."

During one rest period McMichael made it to Paris to see the sights. He thought the Eiffel Tower was fine but wasn't impressed by the street urinals with only a board in front for privacy.

"I didn't think much of that," he says. "You expect something a little nicer in a big city like that."

McMichael says the French people weren't too accommodating, but soldiers were treated well by German civilians.

"When we moved into a town, the Germans were as nice as they could be," he says. "One time a family even asked me over for dinner and we had a nice time. Even in a war I learned you can find nice people everywhere."

McMichael's unit finally made it to Magdeberg, Germany. They stayed there while other units of the 30th Division crossed the Elbe River on the way to Berlin. The American troops were held back, though, so the Russians could be first to enter Berlin.

"Nobody liked it, but there was nothing you could do," he says. "It was just politics."

The war ended while McMichael was still in Magdeberg. He was proud of the victory but ready to go home.

"We'd been there from the invasion until the end of the war," he says. "You can't explain it to someone who hasn't been there, but we saw it all and did it all, and once it was over, I told myself I was going to go home and forget it. And I did."

After the war, McMichael was offered a plane trip home but waited for a troop ship. He has still never flown in a plane.

When he returned home, McMichael opened a small store at the edge of East Newnan. Later, he and his brother opened two more East Newnan stores at either end of the town.

Not long after he got home from the war he met Ruby Long, a Newnan girl who grew up on East Broad Street. The romance went well and they were married on July 31, 1949, and had five children. Nine grandchildren have since joined the family.

In the 1950s McMichael acquired some real estate at the intersection of Poplar and Turkey Creek roads and started building homes. He continued to be a successful builder and took on even more business challenges.

While headed for Lake Martin one day, McMichael stopped in Franklin, where the entire inventory of an Ace Hardware store was being auctioned off. McMichael made a bid and went to the lake. When he came back later that day, he learned he had won the auction.

He got an Ace franchise in Newnan and built a store on part of his property at Poplar and Turkey Creek roads.

McMichael still keeps busy with various business ventures and investments.

"I've worked hard. But I always worked with good people, and that helps," he says. "In the war we did a good job, and I'm proud of that. But I don't like to linger on it. I was just glad when it was over."

Alex McRae, Newnan Times-Herald - Newnan,GA,USA