Bob Welch - Saving My Enemy: How Two WWII Soldiers Fought Against Each Other and Later Forged a Friendship That Saved Their Lives

A true Band of Brothers Story

Saving My Enemy

How Two WWII Soldiers Fought Against Each Other and Later Forged a Friendship That Saved Their Lives

Bob Welch

Bestselling Co-Author with SGT. DON MALARKEY of Easy Company Soldier

Standing armies have been meeting on fields of battle for over 4,300 years, and we have yet to end the war to end all war, so it is safe to say that the last story of soldiers in wartime will never be told. The toll of war will never be tallied. With so many warrior tales to tell, which then do we choose? For me, the answer is simple: we tell the stories that move us deeply, reveal something previously unknown, and change us forever by shining a light on the soul-defiling horror and the soul-salvaging humanity unique to the killing fields of history. Saving My Enemy is just such a quintessential tale. Once read, never to be forgotten. Bob Welch has chosen wisely.

Erik Jendresen , lead writer of Band of Brothers on HBO

Saving My Enemy is the uplifting story of the loss of humanity, the rediscovery of that humanity, and the power of friendship. Bob Welch, with help from the Malarkey and Engelbert families, has woven a beautiful story of how Don and Fritz, after spending time on opposite sides of the battle lines during World War II, rescued each other from the depths of despair. Its a story that needs to be shared, especially now when so many of us could benefit from its inspirational message.

Joe Muccia , historian of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne

I contend that every vet crying over his beer in some American Legion hall about something that happened sixty to seventy years ago is doing so not because of lost buddies, but because of lost honor, of shame. So, late in life, when two enemy soldiers needed each other, they found each other. I was gripped by this story.

Jeff Struecker , former U.S. Army Ranger and author of The Road to Unafraid

In Saving My Enemy, author Bob Welch tenderly reminds us that in war good people are required to do horribly evil things. World War II made Don Malarkey and Fritz Engelbert enemies, but forgiveness made them friends, and grace made them whole again. Read this with a box of tissues and a scotch at hand.

Karen Spears Zacharias , author of After the Flag Has Been Folded

Saving My Enemy is a true and profound story about war and the struggles of soldiers that follow. Bob Welch has unearthed history that transcends the battlefield and culminates in a story about peace, forgiveness, and humanity. Two soldiersenemies in World War IIbecome friends late in life and, ultimately, pass their unlikely friendship on to future generations for safekeeping. This is a rare story for our timesdivision becoming unityand one so necessary in our deeply fractured America.

Tony Brooks , author of Leave No Man Behind

For those who wage war, armed conflict does not always vanish when the guns become silent. Veterans of World War II often concealed their emotional baggage of combat for decades. In Saving My Enemy, Bob Welch masterfully unveils a different battle fought by these aged warriors in their golden years: a reckoning with the past. Exploring the evocative themes of survival and guilt, Welch paints endearing portraits of two soldiers who mustered the inner strength to forgive their former foe. Saving My Enemy is a stirring tribute to the last of a generation.

Erik Dorr and Jared Frederick , co-authors of Hang Tough: The WWII Letters and Artifacts of Major Dick Winters and Fierce Valor: The True Story of Ronald Speirs and His Band of Brothers

This is an enthralling, epic book. Well-versed about war-triggered PTSDhaving experienced it myselfIve never read a story about combat and its personal aftermath quite like Saving My Enemy. We veterans shoulder and suffer the war alonewith or without our families. But Saving My Enemy defines in living color how two soldiers overcame their moral injuries by connecting with each other. Reading this book will help veterans and their families suffer less, knowing there is a path of healing to followa trail broken by an American soldier and a German soldier, one-time enemies who became friends. As one who has seen the carnage of combat, I was inspired to read the rare war story with a happy ending.

Diane Carlson Evans , Vietnam War combat nurse and author of Healing Wounds

Copyright 2021 by Bob Welch

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ISBN: 978-1-68451-033-7

eISBN: 978-1-68451-074-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020953034

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Cover design by John Caruso

In memory of my mother, Marolyn Welch Tarrant, who stood for peace and reconciliation and who thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Fritzs sons, Matthias and Volker, and Dons daughter, Marianne, during our back-deck interviews

The will of God, to which the law gives expression, is that men should defeat their enemies by loving them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

I n 2007, in Salem, Oregon, I did more than a dozen interviews with Band of Brothers hero Don Malarkey, a paratrooper in the 101st Airbornes 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, E Company. Then, together, we wrote his World War II memoir, Easy Company Soldier.

Not, of course, that Malarkey hadnt already enjoyed some notoriety. His unit had been richly chronicled in Stephen Ambroses 1992 book Band of Brothers and in the Tom Hanks and Steven Spielbergproduced HBO series of the same name in 2001.

Malarkey was an extraordinary soldier, having served more consecutive time on the front lines177 daysthan any other member of Easy Company. At some point amid my interviewing him in a basement cluttered with World War II and 1940s Big Band memorabilia, Don mentioned befriending a German soldier after the war. Intent on making our fast-approaching deadline, I offered only a, Huh, interesting, and nudged him back to the task at hand: his story during the war.

The book came out in 2008. Time passed. At ninety-six, Don became the oldest surviving member of Easy Company and then died on September 30, 2017.

Sixteen months later I got an email from his youngest daughter, Marianne McNally. Was I interested in writing a second book involving her father, a story aboutwait for itDon befriending a German soldier late in his life? And about how, afterward, she and her husband Dan had become close friends with the soldiers two sons?