Ben R. Wetenhall, Jr.

“In the photo, my grandfather, Ben R. Wetenhall, Sr., presents the Silver Star, awarded for gallantry in action, to his son — my father — Ben R. Wetenhall, Jr., at a Wisconsin airfield. The award cites the ‘cool courage and strong determination’ of my 19-year-old father.

The extensive involvement of American families in the war is also illustrated by my in-laws. My wife’s father served as a Navy officer in the Pacific after graduating from UNC Chapel Hill. Her uncle died in an Army Air Corps accident training to go overseas.”

– Paul Wetenhall, President and Executive Director, Ventureprise

Ben R. Wetenhall, Jr., remembered by his son, Paul Wetenhall

From tragedy to bliss: American soldier and Ukrainian refugee meet in the aftermath of war.

Ben R. Wetenhall, Jr., was drafted in 1944 through the officer training program at Cornell University. As a member of the 87th Infantry Division, he was in the fierce Battle of the Bulge, where he fought until being badly wounded in Belgium on Jan. 5, 1945. He would spent the next eight months recovering in hospitals in France, Wales, Charleston, S.C., and Staten Island, N.Y.

Meanwhile, his future wife, Maria Malushizky, was a teenager living under German occupation in Ukraine until forced by the retreating army to travel by wagon train to Munich. She survived aerial bombings by Allied forces in the waning days of the war. As the American military occupied Germany post-war, Malushizky, as a displaced person, was grateful for employment in the American PX restaurant.

By 1948, Ben Wetenhall had completed his university education and returned to Europe to work for the U.S. government. He ate in that same PX restaurant. The couple met and courted. Malushizky emigrated to the United States in 1951, and the two married.

Paul Wetenhall’s grandfather, Capt. Ben R. Wetenhall, Sr., a veteran of World War I combat, also volunteered to serve during WWII; he operated German prisoner of war camps in the Midwest.