Veterans mark 80th anniversary of Battle of the Bulge

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) -- Veterans gathered at the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C., Monday 80 years after the start of the Battle of the Bulge. 

More than 22,000 Allied forces and civilians died in what became one of the largest and bloodiest fights of the war.

"Six intense weeks during the coldest winter on record," Jane Droppa, the chair of the Friends of the National WWII Memorial, recounted during the ceremony. "We remember the thousands who gave their lives in this pivotal battle."

Most have to honor the sacrifices from the famous battle based on memorials like the ones at the National Mall, but 99-year-old Col. Frank Cohn survived it.

"Whenever I think about the Bulge, I think of the weather," Cohn said. 

Cohn's mission as an Army intelligence agent during that brutal winter was looking for Germans in American uniforms throughout Belgium, and one drive in particular in sleet and snow with no windshield came to mind.

"I was lucky. I was just a PFC so I was in the backseat. The captain was in the front, and I got behind him. He shielded me, but I never told him that," Cohn remembered, laughing.

Good humor sustained Cohn throughout the war and his life. Like fellow veteran of the battle who also attended the ceremony, 96-year-old Harry Miller, Cohn continued to serve in the military after WWII.

"The legacy of the Battle of the Bulge lives on in the freedoms we cherish today," Droppa said. 

Following a wreath laying ceremony, dozens of spectators filtered through the WWII Memorial to recognize the battle's 80th anniversary and to shake hands and take pictures with Cohn and Miller.