Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is a funnyman best known for directing farcical comedies such as Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles, The Producers, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He is not somebody most people would associate with life-and-death type of hazardous duty. Yet, that is precisely the kind of stuff Brooks did after enlisting in the US Army as a teenager during WWII.
Born Melvin James Kaminsky in Brooklyn, he was raised in poverty by a single mother after his father died when Mel was a baby. Growing up small and sickly in a tough neighborhood, Brooks developed a sense of humor and a precocious comedic talent early on. That came in handy to diffuse confrontations and avoid getting picked on and beaten up.
At age 17, Mel enlisted in the US Army, and scoring high in aptitude and IQ testing, he was sent to the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). There, he was taught important skills such as engineering, and less important ones, such as horseback riding and fencing. He never completed ASTP, because the combat arms complained of its absurdity and that it deprived them of the brightest recruits. When the program was terminated, the teenaged Mel was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for artillery training.
He was sent to Europe in 1944, and assigned as a forward artillery observer. He was then transferred to a combat engineer unit, where his tasks included defusing land mines. In addition to clearing landmines – a hairy job made hairier yet when he had to do it while exposed to enemy fire – he also fought in the Battle of the Bulge during the winter of 1944 – 1945.
As he described it: “War isn’t hell. War is loud. Much too noisy. All those shells and bombs going off all around you. Never mind death. A man could lose his hearing“. He distilled his experience to its essence when asked what he thought during the war about saving Europe and the world: “You thought about how you were going to stay warm that night. How you were going to get from one hedgerow to another without a German sniper taking you out. You didn’t worry about tomorrow“. Aware of the jarring contrast between his funnyman persona and his serious wartime experience, he once mused to reporters: “I was a combat engineer. Isn’t that ridiculous? The two things I hate most in the world are combat and engineering“.