Forgotten Valor – Winning the Peace – Lt. Jack Springer’s Story

I was cleaning out an ignored area of our home and was astonished to come across a simple CD. It looked like every CD I’d ever recorded. But this one was marked. A VHP INTERVIEW WITH: SECOND LIEUTENANT JACK H. STRINGER.

It had his DOB on the label and showed that Alex Johnson had interviewed him.

I remembered Jack.

When we first moved to Greeley, he was the old guy who lived next door. Quiet but friendly, he was always a good neighbor, and I enjoyed talking with him.

He’d told me he’d been a soldier and had gotten to Europe after WWII ended.

I told him I’d love to tell his story, and he’d loaned me the interview.

Jack was old when I met him, and shortly after he loaned the CD to me, he moved. I think his children moved him to a retirement village in California some place and I never saw him again. The DOB printed on the cover tells me that Jack, assuming he’s still alive, would be well over a hundred.

He left, and I forgot the CD, and now, almost fifteen years after he left, I found it.

I’d never listened to it.

Many soldiers talk about how they helped to win a war.

Jack’s story is different. It’s about winning the peace and making friends from a people who were once considered enemies.

It’s a remarkable story, and I present it here for your viewing.

And if some of the Springer family catches it, please reach out to me. I’d like to return the CD to you. It is, after all, family history.