Christmas is a day for remembering miracles. Which is exactly what Paul Wiedorfer does.
Every year, Mr. Wiedorfer is overcome with memories of a Belgian forest on Christmas Day 1944, and a company of American soldiers pinned down by German rifle and mortar fire. He remembers a young GI's solitary -- across an open field, a reckless charge that allowed his company to advance, probably saved dozens of American lives and won for the soldier his country's highest commendation, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
"There hasn't been a Christmas that it don't go through my mind," says Mr. Wiedorfer, 73, speaking of his single-handed capture of two German machine gun nests which left his fellow soldiers shaking their heads in disbelief.
His comrades that day witnessed a miracle. Under a withering barrage of enemy gunfire, a lone figure charged some 150 yards across an open field. And survived.
"When the platoon got up and came up and finally took all these prisoners, saw all these dead people laying there . . . the guys were amazed," says Mr. Wiedorfer, allowing himself a small smile. "I didn't have a wound on me, nothing on me."
Just a week earlier, then-Private Wiedorfer had been ready for a well-deserved rest after serving on the front lines nearly
three months. But the Germans had other plans, launching a surprise attack on their western front that would turn into the most ferocious fight of the war, the Battle of the Bulge.
On Dec. 25, his company -- part of Gen. George S. Patton's 3rd Army -- found itself pinned down on the edge of a forest. About 150 yards away, across a clearing that afforded only a few small ridges for cover, the Germans were entrenched in another forest.
"We started the attack and probably got no more than 50 yards across the terrain when they opened fire on us," Mr. Wiedorfer says, sitting on the sofa of the Parkville home he shares with Alice, his wife of 51 years. "They had so darn much fire, everybody fell on the ground, we were all just pinned down."
Private Wiedorfer lay there on the ground, bullets whizzing by and mortars landing all around. The enemy had dug in and fortified its position. It clearly had the upper hand.
"This mind of mine, it just says, 'Somebody's got to do something, we've got to get out of here,' " Mr. Wiedorfer says. "You're scared, you think you're going to die, you almost know you're going to die. Something in my mind says, 'Well, you're the one that's going to do something.' "
Without orders and without prompting, he started running. He slipped once on the snow-covered ground, scrambled back to his feet and kept running.
"Luckily, their firing wasn't too good that day," he says. "They didn't get me."
About 10 yards from the first machine gun nest, he lobbed a grenade. Several Germans were killed when it went off, the rest badly wounded. Then he flanked the second nest and opened fire, killing one soldier. The rest surrendered.
The American advance continued. Private Wiedorfer was a hero. He was promoted to sergeant. And he kept on fighting.
"I lived the life of about seven or eight infantrymen, because I didn't get wounded until Feb. 10, 1945," he says. "The average infantryman only lasts 30 or 60 days. Maybe he's not killed, but he's wounded or his feet are frozen or something's wrong, so he gets pulled off the line.
By Feb. 10, Sergeant Wiedorfer's company had advanced into Germany. On that day, he and another soldier were crouched near the enemy line, on the bank of a tiny river whose name he has since forgotten, when a mortar hit.
The other man was killed. Shrapnel tore through Mr. Wiedorfer's stomach. His left leg was broken, as were two fingers on his right hand. He would remain in traction for almost three months, and would spend much of the next three years in hospitals.
Mr. Wiedorfer was still in traction when he got the big news.
"This guy, he's looking at Stars and Stripes one day, and all of a sudden he says, 'Wiedorfer, how do you spell your name?' And I says 'W-I-E-D-O-R-F-E-R.' He says 'Paul J?' and I say, 'Yeah.' He says, 'You know you got the Congressional Medal of Honor?' I says, 'What do you mean?' and he says, 'It's in Stars and Stripes.' That's the first I heard of it."
It was hardly the last. When he came back to Baltimore, the city threw him a ticker-tape parade. There were banquets and radio interviews. He was the first living Marylander to be awarded the medal.
And the honors have never stopped. He still gets White House Christmas cards every year, has been invited to every presidential inaugural ball, sports a special license plate on his car. He's one of fewer than 200 Medal of Honor winners still living; every other year, they hold a reunion.
"When you go places, people go out of their way to talk to you," Mr. Wiedorfer says. "Jimmy Durante said to me in Washington . . . I tell him how tickled I am to talk to him, and he says, 'You tickled to talk to me? What an honor it is for me to shake your hand and talk to you.' "
But not all memories are pleasant. He still carries the ugly scars of that mortar blast. Just last month, he underwent major knee surgery.
And not all the scars are physical.
"There were about six men there dead that I was responsible for," he explains. "That's the kind of things I think about. They were human beings just like me. A lot of these little punk German GIs were just like the little punk American GIs. They're in combat because they were drafted in the service. And now they're dead."