A Soldier Goes Home

George Robert Names

Our beloved Grandpa George Names died Tuesday morning, February 17th. This wonderful man was a blessing to us all.

The following narrative describes his service in the United States Army during the Second World War.

George Robert Names served in the United States Army. He was attached to the 80th Infantry, Third Army in the European Theater of Operations during the Second World War. Private Names landed in Normandy, France in 1944, shortly after the main Allied invasion in June of that year. He fought his way across northern France in pursuit of German forces withdrawing from occupied Western Europe. He saw combat action in the areas of Metz and Nancy in the eastern frontier of France, spending most of his nights in foxholes as a forward observer, frequently within earshot of German troops.

As is characteristic of most who served in combat, Mr. Names’ account downplayed the dangers and brutal realities of warfare. Those experiences are only comprehensible to the few who have been through them and words have little real impact.
In the drive to cross the Moselle River, George Names experienced the common problems of the infantryman, including the malady that eventually led to his evacuation from the war; extreme frostbite to his feet. More terrifying were the sudden exchanges of fire with the enemy that was sometimes only mere yards in the distance. One such incident nearly took Names’ life.

German machine gun fire sprayed across the network of foxholes in which American troops kept watch over suspected enemy positions near the river. While seated in a foxhole with another soldier, Names began to rise from his position in the hole. His comrade pulled him back into the bottom of the hole. His account of the incident was that many of the men around him were wounded or killed and the action taken by his foxhole-mate saved him from the same fate. Clearly grateful, but subdued in his description, George Names told this story to few people. This underscores the nature of this citizen soldier that survived the war and lived a life of postwar peace with his wife of more than sixty years, Vetta Arlene Names.
At the time of his death, George Names left a legacy of both soldier and devoted family man. This quiet man lived to see several generations of adoring family members. He is remembered as a great yet common man who was the embodiment of his generation. One of millions who participated in the war, he would be the first to say that the true heroes of the war never came home. Nevertheless, he was and remains our hero.