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The following story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Donald Maurice Brener and Scott Brener.

Donald Maurice Brener, always "Donny" to his mother, was born in Shawano, Wisconsin USA near the end of the "Roaring Twenties" on 26 February 1926. His mother, Elvira Nelson Brener, "Vi", was a school teacher. His father, Maurice F. Brener, "MF", was the president of the Citizens State Bank. MF's father, Buck's Grandfather, had dropped one "n" out of the family name making all his descendents "Breners" instead of "Brenners." MF was also a veteran having served in France with the Wisconsin National Guard during the "Great War" in 1918.
Just 3 years after Donny's birth came "Black Thursday", 24 October 1929, the New York Stock Exchange crashed signaling the beginning of the Great Depression. Donny was nearly 7 years old when F.D.R. was first inaugurated as President. Roosevelt would be the only President Buck would know while growing up. On 1 September 1939 Donny was just starting his seventh grade school year as the leaves began to change colors in northern Wisconsin. That day the Nazis unleashed their "blitzkrieg" on Poland and a few days later the Soviets invaded Poland from the East. England and France honored their treaties with Poland, declared war on Nazi Germany and the Second World War had begun.
Back in Wisconsin, young Donny wore rode his bike, built balsa wood model airplanes and built "go-carts" out of scrap wood and old Maytag washing machine engines (they used gasoline engines in those days.) He went to a school where his aunt Olga Brener was both principal and next-door neighbor, planted trees on arbor day, hung out with the Menominee Indians on their reservation and rode horses. He wasn't allowed to participate in any sports because of the braces on his teeth. He loved practical jokes and was nearly always in some kind of trouble. He went to the movies, got his nickname from the 1940 movie "Buck Benny Rides Again." If any kind of mischief occurred around town everyone would just say "Buck Brener rides again!" He watched the newsreels and saw the war unfolding.
In those years Shawano High School was a basketball powerhouse with coach Clifford F. Dilts. They were the Class B Wisconsin State Champions in 1938 winning 33-30 over Beaver Dam. They went 19-5 in 1941 and won the Wisconsin State Championship, beating Marshfield (13-7 coached by Jack Murphy) by just one point, 23-22. Shawano played in two more championship games, but lost them both.In 1942 Two Rivers beat them 35-28 and in 1943 it was Racine Park by the score of 40-23. However, Buck wasn't allowed to play on the team because his mother worried about the expensive braces he had to wear on his teeth. He became team manager instead.
Buck listened to the radio nearly every day after school. Radio brought the whole world right into his house as if by magic. F.D.R. gave his fireside chats and there were broadcasts from the war correspondents in Europe. Then just weeks before his 14th Christmas, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and the U.S. was in the war. Buck wanted to get into the war as soon as possible, but MF wouldn't agree to sign the Buck's enlistment papers until he managed to graduate from High School. Buck had a very hard time studying. He was sure the great adventure of his generation would end before he could get a part of it.
In June Buck graduated from Shawano High School along with the rest of the class of '44. He immediately took the train down to Milwaukee in his race to enlist in the Navy. On the train down to the induction center in Milwaukee he met his friend "Chic" Schauder who couldn't get into the Navy. So the two of them decided to join the Army together. After getting his enlistment changed to the Army, Buck and Chic wound up assigned to different basic training camps. They didn't see each other again until after the War was over and they were back in Shawano.
Buck did his basic training at Camp Stewart, Georgia in the heat and humidy of July and quickly discovered that adventures were not all they are cracked up to be. His new nickname was "Whitey" due to his very blond hair. That turned out to be just too easy for his drill sergeant to remember and it got Buck "volunteered" for a lot of extra duties. He earned a "sharpshooter's" medal with a rifle and was trained in anti-aircraft work. But the Luftwaffe was all but destroyed before he got to Europe and the Army didn't need any more anti-aircraft gunners.
I remember Buck telling me that he sailed to Europe aboard on the Cunard Line's Queen Mary. She is listed as sailing alone out of New York on 12 October 1944. She was too fast to sail in a convoy and sped off alone. Buck said no U-boats were sighted, but everyone worried about being alone. She docked in Gourock, Scotland on 18 October 1944 with quite a load, 11,891 replacements & 1,061 crew. He said he was in [Northern] Ireland for a while then went ashore at Normandy. The quartermasters had laden all the replacements with lots and lots of spare spare clothes and equipment. They had to turn it all back over to the quartermasters once they reached France. They were just being used as delivery boys.
Like about half of the Americans who served in Europe, Buck was sent to the Replacement Depot and then shipped straight out to the front as an individual replacement. Unlike the Germans and the British, the U.S. and the Soviet armies didn't pull their units out of the front line to make up their losses. Replacements were dribbled in as needed. The attrition rate for replacements was often 50% in their first three days in combat. That turned out to be just what Buck experienced. He and one other replacement got sent straight out to the front line. On their very first day there, the other new guy was shot and killed right in front of Buck.
Buck had been ordered to the 8th Infantry Division's 28th Infantry Regiment, the "Black Lions" regiment, which was by then assigned the part of the "Ghost Front". It was a quiet section of the front lines along the Our River, which was the German-Luxembourg boundary. The Regimental headquarters had been set up in the small town of Grosbuss, using the local kindergarten. While visiting the Division, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall presented the Silver Star medal with Oak Leaf Cluster to Lt. Col. (then Major) Donald R. Ward, 3rd Battalion Commander of the 28th Infantry Regiment, for courageous exploits on the field of battle.
Buck told me on his first night patrol the squad was in Belgium in a coal yard filled with large piles of coal. They were attacked by a German tank and ran around behind a pile. He said he was so scared that he ran all the way around the coal pile and back out in front where the tank was firing its machine gun with tracers. When a tracer bullet is fired its phosphorus ignites and leaves a brilliant trail from the gun to whatever they are going. To Buck each one seemed to going right between his eyes. He froze in his tracks. Luckily the Sergeant felt sorry enough for him to go out in front and bring him back behind the coal pile again.
Although trained at Camp Stewart, GA in anti-aircraft artillery, he was assigned to be a "scout" and spent much of his war behind enemy lines laying communication lines. Because of the weight of the spools of telephone wire, he wasn't allowed to carry an M-1 rifle. He had to make do with a carbine (4 pounds lighter). He said he never liked the carbine because of its lack of hitting-power. From what he told me I believe he almost certainly took part in some of the battle of H眉rtgen Forest on the Belgium-German border in the Fall and Winter of 1944. It was a terrible and costly battle which the Allies "won". Historically it has always been overshadowed by Gen. Montgomery's "OPERATION MARKET GARDEN" and the Battle of Bulge.

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