NUTS! Why Remembering Christmas 1944 Can Change Your Life
by MARCUS BROTHERTON on DECEMBER 18, 2012
In two days, we celebrate the 78th anniversary of one of America's greatest.....and shortest.....speeches. "NUTS!!"On Christmas Eve, 1944, General Anthony McAuliffe, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, issued a flier to his men. It was headlined “Merry Christmas,” and the general wrote, “What’s merry about all this, you ask? We’re fighting. It’s cold. We aren’t home.” He went on to praise Allied troops for stopping flat everything the enemy was throwing at them. Then he described a story that happened two days earlier.
On December 22, the commander of the German army had sent word to McAuliffe. The enemy commander had painted a bleak picture of the Allied position, and insisted there was only one option to save the Allied troops from total annihilation.
Surrender.
When McAuliffe read the demands, he fumed, then sent back to the German commander a reply of only one word.
NUTS!
