Ninety-year old George "Bucky" Brimmer sits in his easy chair with his hands folded on his lap.

He contemplates a question about how his Army Airborne experience during World War II, specifically at the Battle of the Bulge, had affected his life."I was just a boy when I went in the Army," he says. "When I came out I was a man."A lifelong resident of three different locations in Lansford, Brimmer was born into a family along with four brothers and three sisters. While his mother raised the children, his father, after losing his hearing in battle during World War I, worked in the coal mines."I don't like the name, George, that my parents gave me," he says inside a laugh. "When I was born in 1924, my grandfather decided to call me Bucky after Bucky Walters, the manager of the Washington Senators who won the World Series that year. It stuck and it's better than George. My best friends were also Georges and that's what my wife named our son, too."Two enemies: the Germans and the weatherBrimmer relays months, dates, years, and names from nearly 70 years ago like he is flipping a Rolodex in his mind. He tells his stories with as much attention to each detail as if the battles had happened just last week."I was drafted on April 8, 1943. They gave me no choice. I found myself in the 17th Division of the Army Airborne, (known as the 'Thunder from Heaven'), along with two of my best friends, George Herbert and George Fassaman. I was 20 years old at Christmastime in 1944 when we were sent to France. Then we flew into Neufchateau, Belgium, in early January during one of the coldest winters on record."Brimmer was instructed to wear long underwear and two of everything else including pants. He was also told for the unforeseen future, his latrine would be anywhere in the deep woods of the Ardennes Forest.Weather conditions were deplorable with snow and subfreezing temperatures."We couldn't build a fire or even make hot coffee because it might give away our position to the Germans. We made beds with tree branches on the bottom and our overcoats on top."Leading the wayAlthough he was at the rank of private first class, Brimmer took it upon himself to be a leader against the Germans in what history has recorded as the Battle of the Bulge and Adolf Hitler's final attempt to destroy the Allied forces.After hearing that his lifelong friend from Lansford, George Herbert, was killed in action during the first days of combat, Brimmer decided to take his own survival as well as the lives of his fellow soldiers into his own hands. Within a small brigade, he took action on one cold day when he heard someone yell, "I'm hit!""We had six guys in a foxhole when Tommy got out to go to the bathroom. I heard him scream and he ran back with blood shooting out of his shoulder. I used my first aid kit and cleaned and wrapped him up the best I could. Later on, Tommy won a Silver Star for killing two Germans and taking some POWs. He searched for me to thank me for what I had done for him that day.""Then during a cold, dark night, I could hear grown men crying," Brimmer says. "I got up and saw two guys in a deep foxhole. Both were wounded. I yelled for them to come out so we could get them help, but they said they would not come out because they were afraid of being killed. A few days later I found out that they both froze to death in that foxhole."Lucky BuckyBrimmer says he was never afraid to die, but he felt lucky to have escaped death. He was a mortar man and one time upon firing a shell, the whole gun blew up and knocked him back, but he escaped injury.He did not, however, come out of the Battle of the Bulge unscathed."I had a lot of pain in my leg. They sent me to a French hospital for two days. I almost lost my leg and both my feet from severe frostbite."After a short time of recovery, he was ordered back to the front. This time, he flew into northern Germany on a glider to support a British operation, in what he describes as a "suicide mission.""We were carrying 1,699 pounds of ammo on the glider. With anti-aircraft fire all around us, we had only 15 seconds to drop and land."Brimmer and his battalion found most of the town of Colinhart deserted, yet they still patrolled with caution."When a German attack came over us, I knew the barrage would last 10 seconds. I would count to 10 out loud and then we could advance to the next position safely during the time of their reload. Some guys would panic. One guy jumped out too soon and while he was running down the road, he was killed by sniper fire." Brimmer pauses as he reflects, not to take time to remember, but to shift his story."At night we slept with our guns in our hands. We were trained to shoot for the stomach, which is usually not fatal, because it would bring two more of the enemy out to rescue and into our line of fire. I fired my gun, but I don't know if I ever killed anyone."One night, while on patrol of what appeared to be a deserted building, Brimmer came to the top of the stairs leading into a basement. Suddenly, a grenade was thrown over his head.Once again, "Lucky Bucky" escaped unharmed. He was told to flush the German out, but he refused because it was too dark so he would wait until the light of the next day. By morning, the building had been vacated. He wasn't aware of the respect he had earned until more patrols were being organized and his comrades told their commanding officers, "I want to go wherever Bucky goes."Side by sideBrimmer's childhood friend, George B. Fassaman, who would become Brimmer's brother-in-law, followed the words, "wherever Bucky goes" as a point of record. They went to school together, graduated together, were the first 18-year-olds drafted from Carbon County, went to the same Army barracks, fought together at the Battle of the Bulge and now live next to each other in the same duplex, built in 1896, in Lansford.If one difference can be made it would be that Fassaman has lived in his side of the house for all of his 90 years while Brimmer has resided in his side for a mere 61 years. Fassaman speaks of his experience of the Bulge, a word used to describe a "bulge" as the shape the Allied forces' attack."I was wounded early on," the former infantry rifleman says. "I took shrapnel from mortar fire to my face and my hand, and after treatments in three hospitals, I was put on limited duty."Fassaman, a rank sergeant and Purple Heart recipient, also recalls the brutal cold."We wore the same uniform in January in Belgium that we had worn at our camp in North Carolina. In other words we weren't really prepared for that kind of cold."Going into combat, Fassaman held a prophetic belief about what would happen to him."When you're 19 years old you think you will live forever," he says. "I didn't think I would be killed in the war, but I did think I would be wounded, and it's exactly what happened."Life after warWhen the war was over, Brimmer and Fassaman returned to civilian life in Lansford. Brimmer became a postman, a job he would keep for 27 years. In 1948, he met Mary Alice who would later become his bride.After 61 years of marriage and three children: Meryl, Gwyneth and George III, Mary Alice died in 2011.His face lights up as he points to a picture of his wife, taken at her graduation from Temple's School of Nursing in 1949. It stands on a table below a telegram sent from the army to his father in 1945 declaring his son's injury for which he would receive the Purple Heart. Brimmer's collection of medals includes a Bronze Star, a Combat Infantry Badge and a Glider Wings with Star.After years of refinishing antique furniture, he now spends his days watching baseball games, collecting presidential coins, and when the weather permits, walking a mile to visit the Grand Army of Republic Cemetery where Mary Alice rests in peace."I love living here," he says. "I have known all the neighbors through the years."Though he has certainly experienced his share of love and loss in his life, he holds his head high when asked to put his life into words."I have no regrets about anything," he says with another smile. "I served my country. I have a great family. It's been a wonderful life."Fassaman, who says his battle experience made him "wiser" about what matters most in life, claims to be no hero."I was only one of 16 million men in the war," he says with a tone of humility. "I'm really not that comfortable talking about it. I was proud to serve my country, but I don't want credit for anything else."Although they may not seek any gratitude for their service, George "Bucky" Brimmer and George B. Fassaman are very much heroes to their families as well as examples of courage for their roles in preserving America's freedom.