When Westbrook resident Dick Goodie thinks back to memorial weekend 1945, he remembers counting his blessings that he had made it through the war in Europe.

Dick Goodie, now 87, had for 10 months fought his way from Normandy to central Germany as a soldier with the 3rd Armored Division.

Goodie was awarded 5 battle stars during his world war service, during which he estimates he came close to death more than 200 times. Much of Goodie's wartime adventures are recorded in his newly-published memoirs Raindrops on a Nail Keg.

65 years later, we asked him to share his thoughts as memorial day approaches.

"In Europe during WW2 it must be noted that all of the killing and destruction was the consequence of one man, Hitler, who was drive by his delusional dream to control the world. Actually his existence
caused our army's existence. His incredible mirage was to hurl the progress was to hurl the progress of a reasonably decent civilization back to the maruading legions of antiquity. The nefarious situation peaked during the late 1930s when Hitler's armies annexed Austria of course and enslaved Czechoslovakia, occupied most of Europe, and then later you'll remember his final solution - the organized massacre of 6 million men, women and children. Those incidents of depravity that defy human perceptions, must never be forgotten. In our modern culture, I often read of a person who makes mockery of all wars stating that they are totally unnecessary. I would ask them in God's name, how they cannot justify World War 2."

Dick Goodie was born in Bangor in 1923. At 19 he was drafted into the army and found himself being shipped to Britain at the end of 1943 in preparation for the planned invasion of Europe the following summer. That sea voyage, recalls Goodie, was a precarious experience in which the threat of German U-Boats was ever-present.

"We shipped out of Fort Shanks New York on the Queen Mary. It took us 5 days to cross the Ocean and the ship, its speed was thought to be its best defence, but had it got torpedoed, I learnt 20 years after the war that the Queen Mary, of course it could carry 15,000 soldiers across the Ocean, and we found out afterwards that had it been torpedoed that it carried enough lifeboats for about half that number."

Goodie, who still fits into his world war 2 uniform, is proud of his service with the 3rd Armored Division, nicknamed the 3rd Herd, and also known as 'Spearhead' because of the key role it played in many battles.

DG: "Our 3rd Armored Division spearheaded most 1st Army drives, with the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, and the P-47s in support, the 9th Tactical Air Force. Those 3 units, attacking as a single strike force, was invincible. Nothing could stop it, which we proved time and again across France, Belgium and into central Germany. A case point at Mons in Belgium, soon after September 2nd after we crossed the border, the German 7th Army was trying to escape back to their Siegfried Line and in the mess that ensued, the 3-day battle, by those 3 units, resulted in 23,000 of the enemy either killed or taken prisoner."

TP: "It's 65 years now since the war in Europe ended. Were you surprised, shocked when you realized you had survived the war when so many hadn't?"

DG: "Well of course Tom, when you're 21 years old, you think you're made out of cast-iron, and there's one thing you want to remember and that is that we were well-trained. And they told us we would see blood - they told us that in basic training. We knew it wasn't going to be easy. I can remember on the liberty ship coming home. a bunch of us talking about our narrow escapes, and we agreed that the average of when a missile, a bullet or shrapnel, came within a foot of our person, came out about 250 times as an average. So we felt quite lucky to be alive."

TP: "And you've written, quite extensively, your memoirs. Do you think that writing about your experiences in World War Two, in what way does that help you? I know a lot of veterans cope with the trauma of what happened to them by not talking about it, you go the other way and talk about it."

DG: "It's always been puzzling to me why veterans don't want to share their experiences. I was always proud to be a soldier, and I know when I first came home I wanted to write about it. My mother said 'now that you've survived the war, perhaps you should write about your adventures because they are unusual.' And then I was intuitive enough to know that anybody who want to write about anything had to do an awful lot of reading, and I retreated to the cellar of our house the winter of 1945/46, and I read everything I could lay my hands on, especially past American wars. And I just had a compulsion to tell about my war, because I thought it was a pretty good war, as wars go."

87 year old World War Two veteran Dick Goodie of Westbrook has published his memoirs, "Raindrops on a Nail Keg," through Irving Books.