A cemetery Christmas

Dutch History teacher Wiel Goertzen at the grave of Ed Forrest.

   At my office Christmas party, I mentioned to my colleague Bob Montgomery, an avid historian in the city of Bristol, Connecticut, that I’d like to give a talk at the Bristol Public Library. He asked me if I wanted to talk about my books. I said, “No, I’d like to talk about cemeteries.”

   I proceeded to tell him three stories about graves, and I was telling him a fourth when our publisher, Michael Schroeder, happened by and said, “Leave it to Aaron to talk about cemeteries at a Christmas party.”

   “Actually,” I said, “these stories are kind of uplifting.” I pointed out that the grave in the fourth story, that of an unknown German pilot, an “unbekannte flieger,” as it were, was marked by a propeller blade from the Messerschmitt 109 in which he crashed, and that a lady in the village cemetery at Heimboldshausen kept it decorated with dried flower arrangements even though she didn’t know his name. “Isn’t that kind of uplifting?” I asked. He wasn’t impressed.

The grave of the "unbekannte flieger" who, after my visit to Heimboldshausen, with the help of German historian Walter Hassenpflug, was identified as Erwin Bunk.

   But I’m getting ahead of myself. Bob said he always found cemetery stories interesting, as any historian would, so I told him that one of the stories I’d like to talk about was about Johnny Daum.

   In 1994, with the 50th anniversary of D-Day approaching, the newspaper I worked for at the time asked me to find some local D-Day veterans. So I wrote to Stephen Ambrose at the Eisenhower Center in New Orleans and asked for recommendations. He sent me a list of about a dozen.

   One of them was Ed Boccafogli, a veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division. Ed told of an incident that occurred before he boarded the plane to fly across the English Channel. There was a young paratrooper named Johnny Daum, and being that Ed was a little older and more rugged, he took Johnny under his wing. Johnny was about 19 years old, a good looking kid, tow-headed. Ed noticed Johnny staring off into space, and asked him if everything was okay.

   Johnny said matter of factly, “I’m gonna die tomorrow.”

I can still hear Ed quoting himself, ” ‘Ey, Johnny,'” he said, “‘some of us will, some of us won’t, you ain’t gonna be one of ’em.'”

   “Sure enough,” Ed said, “he was one of the first ones killed.”

   When I launched my web site tankbooks.com in 1997, I posted my full interview with Ed. Eventually the transcript of the interview was re-posted on the web site of the 508th Parachute Infantry Division, Ed’s unit, and the anecdote about Johnny Daum’s premonition was picked up in a book titled “The Americans at Normandy,” by John McManus.

   Meanwhile, in Eagle Lake, Wisconsin, a fellow named Tom Stumpner grew up knowing he had an Uncle Bud who was killed during the war. That was all he knew, as his mother would never talk about her brother.
    “Band of Brothers” was released in 2001. I don’t know when Tom saw it, probably not too long thereafter, and he suddenly remembered that his Uncle Bud was a paratrooper. His mother wouldn’t talk about it, but Tom’s interest in D-Day was piqued.

   Then his mother took ill. When she was near death, she gave Tom a box, I don’t know if it was a cigar box or a cardboard box, but in it were letters, snapshots, and other memorabilia from Uncle Bud. It was then he learned Bud wasn’t really his uncle’s name. His uncle’s name was John Daum.

   He didn’t know much beyond what was in the letters. But then he bought “The Americans at Normandy” and discovered the anecdote about Johnny Daum’s premonition. And then, I don’t know if he googled John Daum or Ed Boccafogli, but he discovered my interview on the paratroopers’ web site. He emailed the site and said he wanted to fill out his uncle’s story, and he sent them copies of the letters and snapshots his mother left him.

The American cemetery in Normandy. Photo by Mary Kay Bosshart.

   Fast forward to 2011. Mary Kay Bosshart, who writes a blog called “Out and About With Mary Kay,” took a tour of the American cemetery in Normandy. The tour guide stopped at one grave and told a story.

   In 2007, the guide said, another tour guide found a letter propped up against the cross marking the grave at which they were stopped. The grave was that of John Daum.

   The tour guide in 2011 gave Mary Kay a copy of the letter, which she posted on her blog.

Le 1 november 2007
Dear John,
    We don’t know each other, we know nothing of each other’s lives and even so, I feel I owe you so much. I know nothing of you or so little.
    I don’t know what were your tastes, your hobbies, your favorite music or if you had a girlfriend back home. I don’t know what you loved in life, your too short life.
    John, you’ve been buried here for over 60 years, in this land of France that saw your last days. These last days where you fought for the liberation of a country, a whole continent and a civilization. When I found your picture, I started thinking a lot about you, your face, your pink cheeks, almost the face of a child. Your smile tells me you must have been mischievous, cheerful and full of life.
    Then I felt a deep sorrow because I know that on that day of June 6 th, 1944, when you jumped into the cold black night on the Normandy beach, you must have been terrified. Terrified before the unknown, terrified at the thought of never seeing your family again, of loosing your army companions, of being alone, of death itself. Nevertheless, you survived that historic night and fought for two long days, before you fell on June 8 th.
    I wonder how were the last moments of your life, with who you were. From the bottom of my heart, I hope that you were not alone. Because I know that your comrade-in-arms must have done everything to protect you, reassure you and comfort you.
    I read the letters that were addressed to your parents when you passed away and realized that you were very much appreciated by your army companions.
    Before I leave John, I would like to tell you how much I am aware that your ultimate sacrifice and the one of thousand of men like you has allowed me and all of us, to live in a land of freedom and peace.
    For all of this, I am sincerely grateful. So, I promise you that every time I will travel to Normandy, I will come visit you to honor your memory. I will lay my hand on your white cross, so that you are not alone in the dark anymore. I will keep your memory alive in my heart and I will never forget what you have done for me, for our liberty, for all of us.
    See you soon and may god bless you.

Yvan ----
Belgique

 

   Fascinated by the letter and wanting to know more about Johnny Daum, Mary Kay asked at the cemetery office if they could put her in touch with Yvan, and she asked the web master of the 508th PIR site if she could contact Tom.

   Today, Mary Kay, Tom and Yvan are great friends. Tom has been over to Normandy several times with members of his family, and has even learned a great deal more about his uncle’s experiences and the circumstances surrounding his death.

Out And About With Mary Kay: The John Daum post

   The second story is about a Gold Star mother. It was told to me in 1999 by Erlyn Jensen, who was 12 years old when her brother Bill, who was 19, went into the service. Bill became a major in the 445th Bomb Group and was killed on Sept. 27, 1944.
   Erlyn's mother took Bill's loss very hard. Her two daughters encouraged her to join the Gold Star Mothers, which she did, and that seemed to help considerably. Then one day a family friend who Erlyn said wished to remain anonymous gave her mother an all expenses paid trip to France so she could visit her son's grave in the Lorraine American Cemetery at St. Avold.
    When she told the support group about the upcoming trip, one of the other Gold Star Mothers said, “Mrs. Mohr, I’ll never be able to go to St. Avold. If I give you ten dollars, would you buy some flowers and place them on my son’s grave?”

   “Oh, I’d be delighted to,” Erlyn’s mother said, or words to that effect.

   Now, this was a pretty emotional moment in the story and as often happens, I was getting choked up. Erlyn said, “If you’re gonna cry now, just you wait.”

   Erlyn’s mother went to France and visited the cemetery at St. Avold. She checked in at the office and a guide took her to her son’s grave. He gave her a whistle and said to blow it when she was ready to leave, and he would come and get her.

The Lorraine American Cemetery at St. Avold, France.

    She spent as much time as she needed, and then blew the whistle. When the guide returned, she showed him a piece of paper with the number of the other Gold Star Mother’s son’s grave.

The guide looked at the paper and said, “Mrs. Mohr, he’s buried right across the walkway from your son!” So she was able to come home and tell the other Gold Star Mother that your son and my son are neighbors.

   Over the years I’ve posted a lot of stories and transcripts from my interviews. On June 3, 2010, I received the following email:

Dear sir,
    My name is William Goertzen and I’m a teacher at a college for 12 till 17 year olds. I teach History and each year we spent about 10 weeks on World War Two. One of our fieldtrips is to Margraten, an American Burial site for soldiers killed in action; our school adopted the grave of one of these soldiers. With our classes we visit the grave once or twice a year, we pray for this man and we put some flowers at his grave in order to honor him and all those who died for the freedom of Europe and the Netherlands.
    Since October 2007 i have seen searching for information on Edward L. Forrest, 1Lt of the 712 th Tank Batallion. All I know is that he was killed in action on 3rd April 1945 and his ASN = O1017955. Now our idea is to make a wall inside the school with information and photos of Ed Forrest, so the War becomes ‘touchable’ for our pupils; it becomes more ‘real’ if they can look at and read about this lieutenant. We also hope to honor this particular soldier by creating this wall in our school, at
a place where pupils pass every hour/lesson.
    My problem is that I cannot seem to get any further on the internet. All trails lead to dead ends. I’ve sent forms with requests to the Department of the Army Administration section in Virginia, I’ve filled in a form of the NARA in Missouri, but no news yet. A mister Paul Wilson of North Carolina helped me on my way; Aparently Ed Forrest lived in Stockbridge, Berkshire County, MA., but all my internet searches lead to dead ends.
   In all of your interviews with veterans of 712th TB, I only once came across the name of 1LT Ed Forrest, mentioned by one of the veterans.
    Perhaps You could help me on my way, so I could learn more about his death but especially about the man behind the name; he also has or had family; I’d like to obtain information and pictures in order to make my remembrance wall and to use it in order to point out to 12 till 17 year olds that WW2 must never be forgotten.
    I hope to hear from you very soon and I would like to thank you already for reading my mail.
Yours sincerely
William Goertzen, teacher at Carbooncollege in the Netherlands.

   I didn’t know how to say “mother lode” in Dutch, but that is what Wiel had struck. Although my father’s time in combat was barely long enough to get a cup of coffee and two Purple Hearts, he managed to bond with a fellow lieutenant, Ed Forrest, who was killed near the very end of the war. As I recorded and preserved the stories of the veterans of my father’s battalion, I always asked veterans of my father's company about Ed Forrest. As Ed was an original member of the battalion while my father was a replacement, I heard many more stories about Ed than about my dad.

   And then in 1995, I decided to see if I could find Ed’s family. Within a couple of phone calls, I was on the line with Ed’s brother, Elmer Forrest. I went up to Lee, Massachusetts, and interviewed Elmer. I subsequently interviewed Dorothy Cooney, who had a secret romance with Ed and never married. I learned Ed had a falling out with his father and moved in with an Episcopalian minister when he was 14, and that the minister left a diary which I was able to read at the Stockbridge Library.

   Elmer Forrest had passed away, but I was able to put Wiel in touch with David Forrest, Elmer’s son, and David sent him a family photograph, which, along with some material I sent, was placed in a display case in the school.

The Ed Forrest display at Carbooncollege in the Netherlands.

   There you have it: three stories about cemeteries, each uplifting in its own special way, and each of which I had a role, however small, in preserving. If you’d like to know more about Johnny Daum, please visit the web site of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

   If you’d like to read or hear more, please explore the pages of my new web site, aaronelson.com, and check out the great prices in my eBay store.

A tale of two uncles



The Saar River at Dillingen, December 1944. Photo by
Robert Pitts, 150th Engineer Combat Battalion.

On Oct. 6th I received an e-mail from Patricia Robison, asking if, in my interviews with veterans of the 712th Tank Battalion, I came across any information about her uncle, Lee Miller, who she said was killed on Feb. 27, 1945. The name rang a bell -- well, I mean it really rang a bell, like ding-ding-ding-ding-ding -- but I was uncertain just where in the dozens of interviews I've done with veterans of the 712th, the unit with which my late father served, I'd heard his name.

I knew he was in B Company, so I forwarded the e-mail to Lou Gruntz Jr., the B Company historian. The reason I remembered Miller's name was because his company commander, Jim Cary, once told me he put Miller in for a silver star -- which he was awarded -- for volunteering to disable a tank that had to be abandoned when the battalion retreated across the Saar River in December of 1944.

The battalion didn't really "retreat" across the river, the way the Germans retreated from Stalingrad or Napoleon from Moscow. Rather, it was a strategic withdrawal, effected after the 712th and its attached 90th Infantry Division (I know, I know, it was the other way around) fought for and captured the city of Dillingen, where my father was wounded for the second time. Dillingen was about 100 miles south of Luxembourg, where the Battle of the Bulge had begun. The 3rd Army was needed to break the siege of Bastogne, although according to one account I heard, there was some concern that the German juggernaut might turn south and overrun the 90th Division.

At any rate, the division pulled back across the Saar and the 712th tanks went across first on a pontoon bridge, and when that was destroyed by German artillery, on a ferry. Two tanks, one in C Company and one in B Company, were inoperable and had to be left behind.

Lee Miller stayed to destroy the B Company tank, most likely by pouring a five-gallon can of gasoline into the hatch and then dropping in a hand grenade. He was given a set of coordinates and was to meet two infantrymen, who would escort him across the river in a boat.

When he arrived at the meeting point, there were no infantrymen and no boat. So he swam across the Saar River, in the middle of an exceptionally cold December.

Cary was wounded during the Battle of the Bulge and never did learn of Miller's fate until he spoke with some B Company veterans at the 1993 mini-reunion of the 712th in Bradenton, Florida.

It was there that I interviewed Juel Winfrey, a B Company veteran, who spoke about Miller. A search of the B Company interviews in my files turned up this passage:

Juel Winfrey: "I recall an incident, and here again, this was further in -- well, it was after -- the next real thing I remember was Dillingen, Germany, where we had to cross the Saar River. We crossed on pontoon bridges. And I was on a tank at that time with a young fellow as a tank commander named Lee Miller. Lee was another boy from Oklahoma, where I'm from. However, I didn't know him before. But the Sixth Cavalry had made arrangements with the 712th Tank Battalion to get one company -- not one company but one platoon -- of tanks in an area to support them. And they sent this lieutenant back to pick us up.

"Well, this lieutenant came back and he led us by jeep, with the tanks following, to an area that was supposed to be secured. And when we got up there, our platoon leader, Lieutenant Gaggett, he said, 'Now you guys, one tank of you get your mess kits and your rations and go in this house back here, and make an evening meal.' He said, 'Now the other two tanks, you keep a loader and a gunner in the tank just as an outpost, and the other three of you go.' Well, we climbed out of our tank, got out in front of it, and we had a German ammunition..."

Here, the 45-minute side of the tape ran out, and some of what Winfrey said was lost before I could flip the cassette. So I'll interject a little supposition. The trip on the pontoon bridge was the aforementioned withdrawal, and the incident where the platoon was supporting the 6th Cavalry is the one where Miller was killed some two months later, when the battalion would have been in the Siegfried Line.

Once again, Juel Winfrey: "Five of us got out, and you know how wide the front of a tank is, we were lined up, me right in the middle, and Lee Miller on my right side, and I can't remember who the assistant driver was, but he was on the other side. Aaron Craig, who was the loader, was over here on my left side, and then the other member of the crew was over here. And all at once, we heard the German shell come. And Lee Miller said 'Look out!' And that's the last words the man ever spoke. The shell caught him right, the shrapnel, caught him right in the back, and it killed him like that. Standing right here at my shoulder. Aaron Craig over on this side, he was badly wounded, and they had to get the medics to take him back to the hospital. And the other three of us didn't get scratched once. Now that's one of those close calls that make you think the Good Lord's with you, too.

"But this Lee Miller had been with, I was also in a tank crew with him when we went across the Saar River. And when we crossed the Saar we went into Dillingen. The town had been completely vacated, there wasn't a handful of civilians left. And we sat there for a few days waiting for the infantry to cross and catch up with us. Which they never did. Or at that time at least. Because that's when they started the Bulge. And they gave us orders to pull out.

"And we had one tank that had been mired down in the mud, and they wanted a volunteer to stay behind and blow up that tank after the rest of us got back across the river. We were going back across that pontoon bridge. Well, he was to meet a couple of infantry guys and the three of them would come back together, because the infantry guys had a bunch of ammunition they had to blow up.

"And when Lee got back to this designated place that he was supposed to meet the two infantry men, they never did show up. This is in December.

"He stayed and blew up the tank, and came back to the place to meet these two guys and they weren't there. He swam that Saar River, that December night, cold as the dickens, and I don't remember the exact date, but it must have been a week or ten days before he was able to find our unit, to catch up with us. And after all of that, he was the one that was killed later in this situation that I just described."

I'll admit it. I patted myself on the back and said to myself, "Damn you're good!" But the truth is I get many requests like Patricia's and am only able to provide such valuable information for a few of them. I haven't heard yet from Lou Gruntz Jr. but with his extensive knowledge of B Company's history -- he traveled to Europe with his father and they retraced the company's battle route, and Lou chronicled the company's history in an excellent, yet unpublished, book -- I imagine he could send Patricia even more information about her uncle.

'The Flower That Never Blossomed'

One other recent incident, however, also deserves a proverbial pat on the back. I was formatting my book "A Mile in Their Shoes" for the Amazon Kindle e-book reader -- when I say formatting, I mean retyping, because the original document was lost with the demise of a computer several years ago. And it's a good thing I retyped it, because I discovered about two dozen misspellings of names and places that were easy to verify on the Internet today; not so easy in 1996. But I digress.

One of the dozen veterans whose edited interview transcript I used in "A Mile" was Ed Boccafogli, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division who jumped into Normandy. Ed's was one of the first interviews I posted on my World War 2 Oral History web site @ tankbooks.com, and it has served as source material in a couple of books, properly credited, that I know of, and some or all of it has been re-posted on a couple of other sites.



John Daum

I thought it would be a good touch for the Kindle edition to add the date of Ed's death, so I went to the Internet in search of an obituary. I didn't find one, but I did find the date that he died, and added it to the book.

I also found, at a web site for the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, an account written by Thomas Stumpner of Fox Lake, Wisconsin, who is the nephew of Johnny Daum, about whom Ed told a story. The story, about a premonition Daum had that he would be killed on D-Day, was picked up and used by the author John McManus in a book called “The Americans at D-Day.”


“For as long as I can remember," Stumpner wrote in April of 2008 in a story he posted on the 508th PIR web site, "my mother always had two pictures of my Uncle 'Bud' hanging on the wall. The first was a group picture of Company D, 71st Battalion, at Camp Robinson, Arkansas. The other was an 8-by-10 of him in his paratrooper uniform.

“As a child I would occasionally ask questions about him. She would usually just answer that he died in the war. That he stayed back to guard the camp and was killed by a sniper. The Army even reported that he was killed 6/23/44 when the actual date is listed as 6/8/44. After I moved from home I would think of Bud but never really followed through with more questions. When I was very young, I told her that I would go to Europe and find out about him. At the time I don’t know if she (or for that matter, even myself) believed that I would follow through with my actions.

“In 1994, the 50th anniversary, my interest piqued again about my Uncle Bud. I remember seeing stories about the invasion on the 'Today' show with the veterans at Normandy. It was at that time I realized what battle my uncle was in and that he may have been killed on D-Day. I remember a fishing trip at the time with my brother Chuck, who served in Vietnam. We talked about the jump and what Bud may have gone through. Little did I know of the things he went through that night. My sister Virginia had a friend that had visited the Normandy American Cemetery at this time. She took a picture of his cross and brought back booklets of the cemetery.

“Then, when the show 'Band of Brothers' came out in 2001, it really started to make me think about Bud. I really wanted to find out about him. I started thinking, 'How do I start? Who and how do I contact somebody?' What compounded the problem is that I did not know my Uncle’s name. All I ever knew him by was Bud. I always assumed, wrongly, that he was named after his father, Paul. It was not until my mother took ill in 2006 that I found out my uncle’s name was John A. Daum.

“I did a search for him on the computer and found out that he was with the 508th PIR of the 82nd Airborne. I have found out a lot about him through the help of Dick O’Donnell and his web site, www.508pir.org. With this information I have decided to tell everyone about my Uncle Bud.

“John Daum was born on April 24, 1924, to Paul and Frances Daum in Marathon County, Wisconsin. He was the third child of four. He had three sisters, Helen, Marcella and Rosella. He received his education at St. John’s Parochial School. He later worked for a farmer near Nasonville, Wis. From October 1942 to April 1943 he worked at the Weinbrenner Shoe Factory in Marshfield, Wis.

“In April 1943, he entered the military service. He served basic training at Camp Robinson, Ark. From there he was to go to Fort Sheridan, Texas, but instead he joined the paratroopers.

“In August he went to Fort Benning where he started his paratrooper training. At this time he was with Company H of the 541st. During the next two months he trained to become a paratrooper. He stated how they trained, that they would run everyplace and did a lot of exercises all day. He claims to have had fun doing five- and ten-mile runs, which does not sound like fun to me. He learned how to pack his chute, jump from towers and finally from a plane. In a letter that he wrote to my mother, Helen, he told her to tell my father that 'a lot of fellows were getting sick' but he didn’t and he didn’t even have to 'clean his shorts.' He also wrote to his father after one of the runs. He said that it was 'really hot and a lot of soldiers were getting sick,' but he didn’t and he kept going. 'That Daum blood kept me going,' he wrote. It paid to have a sense of humor going through training.

“On Oct. 2, 1943, he received his wings. From there he went to Camp Mackall and joined the 508th. He wrote his mother and said 'the 508th is a good company to be in and they will be going overseas in three or four months. I am proud to be in the 508th.' Sometime at the end of October he came home for the last time. In returning to camp, he recalled of him and a fellow trooper from Illinois having trouble making the train because of a flat tire on the bus, but they both made it okay.

“At the end of 1943 John and the rest of the 508th went to Northern Ireland and then to Nottingham, England. It was there that Sergeant Walter Barrett had told me of his contact with John. 'I knew him personally. I was closely associated with him while we were stationed in Nottingham. We trained at this location preparing for the D-Day invasion of France. John was a good-looking airborne soldier – with a full head of blond hair. He could have easily impersonated a German soldier. One thing I remember about our brief association was that John and I, along with the guidance of an old regular Army sergeant named John Petric, would practice ‘The Manual of Arms’ (precise movements in handling of a weapon during a drill or ceremony). We became pretty good at it. I was proud to have entered combat with John.'

“In his letters home from England John said there was not much to do in England but to train and to go into town. He compared Nottingham to Marshfield and mentioned the English girls as being nice. In his last letter home on May 10th he mentioned the training and receiving a package from home. He enjoyed the candy and was wondering if in the next package his mother could send some socks. He also told everyone not to worry and that he hoped to be home in a year. In almost all the letters he sent home he would sign them 'Good luck and love, Bud.' In hindsight, it was they who should have wished him good luck.

“On June 6th the invasion of France was on. In the book 'The Americans at D-Day' by John McManus there was a story by Ed Boccafogli of my uncle the day before. The story goes as follows: 'Some could not escape the terrifying, depressing feeling that they were witnessing their last sunset. Not far away from where Sergeant Brewer sat writing to his father, Private Ed Boccafogli, the B Company trooper who was so disappointed at the previous day’s postponement, noticed one of his buddies, Private Johnny Daum, standing outside the tent, ‘like a statue looking into space.’ The skinny, towheaded Daum barely looked a day over sixteen. Boccafogli had never known him to act so morose. He was a few years older than Daum and thought of him as a little brother. He walked over to him. ‘Hey, Johnny, what’s the matter?’

“ 'Daum hardly even replied. He just stood there in a kind of stupor. Boccafogli was really concerned now. ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’

“ 'Daum finally replied in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘I’m gonna die tomorrow.’

“Boccafogli tried to cheer him up: ‘Ahh, come on. Some of us will, some of us won’t, but you ain’t gonna be one.’

“ 'Daum could not be dissuaded. He insisted on the imminence of his death. Eerily enough, he was right. He got killed on D-Day. Boccafogli never forgot him. ‘These things stay with you the rest of your life.’ ”

“Today John is laid to rest at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. His grave is Plot F, Row 23, Grave 42.

“In a conversation that my niece, Gayle, had with my mother she explained why Bud was never returned to the States. “My mother did not bring him home because a neighbor had brought her son home for burial and it was like losing him all over again and she did not want to go through that again. Plus Bud was resting where they had buried him.”

“So that is the story of my Uncle Bud at this time. What I have learned was that my uncle was not a very big man, probably about 5-4 and maybe 140 pounds. My mother once told my niece that my uncle “was not very big, was quiet, and enjoyed to smile and laugh.” In the past my mother always told me that her mother said that “Bud was the flower that never blossomed.” I think today she would not find this to be true at all. As Walter Barrett had e-mailed me, “I am proud to have known him – John A. Daum – a great American and a brave trooper.”

“About the only thing left to say is: 'Good luck and love.' ”