Joseph Kagan was born in July 1922 in Hartford, Connecticut. He had one brother and two sisters. He was the youngest. His parents came over from Europe. His father came over during World War One [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918] from Russia. He was a carpenter. He got a job building barracks for soldiers during World War One. Kagan’s mother came over in 1921 with a son and a daughter. Hartford had a large population of immigrants from Europe. His family was in the dairy business. They delivered milk to people’s homes. When he was in high school he worked in an ice cream shop. He went to the University of Connecticut [Annotator's Note: in Storrs, Connecticut] as a dairy course major. While there, he joined the ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] for the first two years. Then he joined the advanced ROTC. He enlisted in the Army in his third year. He was sitting in his dorm room listening to the radio when a broadcast come over that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. In his junior year, he was sent to basic training at Camp Wheeler in Macon, Georgia. After he finished the training, he was assigned to OCS [Annotator's Note: officer candidate school] for the infantry at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1943. Next, he was sent to the 99th Division [Annotator’s Note: 99th Infantry Division] for training in Paris, Texas. They trained to go overseas. Kagan trained snipers.

Joseph Kagan remembers the ship [Annotator’s Note: going overseas] was crowded. He was an officer and had a room to sleep in. The enlisted men had bunks to sleep on that were seven beds high. Kagan was a mail censor on the ship. They were not supposed to say what they were doing or where they were going. Their ship landed in Southhampton, England. Kagan was on garbage duty at the mess hall. They got word that they would be sent overseas across the channel [Annotator’s Note: the English Channel]. They landed in France on the beaches where their predecessors had landed in June [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Once they got there, they were loaded on trucks and went to Belgium to a town called Aubel. Then they were shipped north to the Ardennes Forest in October or November 1944. They were set up in tents. They were behind the Maginot Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by France in the 1930s]. The Germans were in front of them. They were stationed there to hold the land. The Germans did a counter-attack and this was known as the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. They were living in cold conditions with snow on the ground. Their feet were wet and a lot of guys got trench foot [Annotator's Note: immersion foot syndrome]. When the attack came, it was chaos. They ended up on Elsenborn Ridge [Annotator's Note: in Belgium near the German border]. They could see Germany. They were in foxholes. The Germans were firing at them with 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. The weather was cloudy so they could not get air support. They lived in the foxholes and had barbed wire in front of them. Officers were getting assignments to take patrols out. Kagan organized a patrol of 20 people. Their mission was to go to the German lines and take a prisoner. He had to go through barbed wire and snow. They found a German sleeping on the front line and brought him back. They got good information from the young man. Kagan was promoted to first lieutenant on the spot. As the weather cleared, they got air support. They started their counter-attack and went right through the German lines. They made it through the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s]. Kagan remembers seeing the dead bodies in the snow. This took them into Germany.

Joseph Kagan was an infantry soldier. He won the Silver Star [Annotator's Note: the Silver Star Medal is the third-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy]. The Germans were on a hill firing at them with machine guns. Kagan and his platoon had to knock them out. He ordered marching fire. They had to shoot and march up the hill. They knocked out three machine guns and captured 50 prisoners. Next, they had to get across a bridge on the Rhine River. They ran across the bridge to get to the other side. The Germans were on the high ground. After they crossed, the bridge was blown up. The engineers built pontoon bridges for the others to get across. They liberated the town. Russians came rushing out of the underground. Kagan picked up a camera as a souvenir and he traded it for a Luger pistol [Annotator's Note: German P08 Luger 9mm semi-automatic pistol]. Then they started moving south. They were heading toward Munich [Annotator’s Note: Munich, Germany] when the war ended. They received word that the Japanese had surrendered. An atomic bomb had been dropped on Japan [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. They all cheered when they heard because they had been told that they would go to Japan after their tour in Europe. Eventually, they came back to the United States. They were stationed in Alabama. Kagan was released from the Army in 1946. Kagan went back to U Conn [Annotator’s Note: the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut] and finished his last year there. He used the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment]. He majored in the dairy industry. He got a job in New York working in a dairy company. Then he worked for a company that made yogurt. He became president of the company. Then he did consulting work for dairy companies. He went to Europe to help European companies develop. He also went to South America. His wife went with him on the trips. He graduated from UConn in 1947 and got married that same year.

Joseph Kagan voluntarily joined the ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps]. The first two years were compulsory. The third year was voluntary and he liked it. His two roommates became officers as well. The training was nice. He felt good about enlisting in the Army. ROTC was infantry. He went to OCS [Annotator's Note: officer candidate school] at Fort Benning [Annotator’s Note: Fort Benning, Georgia] for infantry as well. He had good respect for the men. They had a great first sergeant. It was a good platoon. Kagan was mainly a platoon leader. In the end, he was a company commander because there were fewer of them around. There were 40 men in his platoon. He spread them out. They were five yards apart. He gave the order to start marching. They fired as they marched up the hill. They had machine gun fire raining down on them. They captured 50 prisoners. Capturing the hill helped with their advance into Germany. The 99th Division [Annotator’s Note: 99th Infantry Division] had reunions for 66 years. They became a close-knit group. A lot of the men were captured during some of the actions they were in. They had a reunion and were one of the first groups to visit the World War Two museum [Annotator's Note: The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. He went back recently and he enjoyed the visit. He would recommend the place. He thinks young people should go see it. They were getting prepared to go to Japan. They did not get involved with the prison camps. He knew he had to finish school. He did not have the desire to make a career in the Army. The group called the Diggers would go out into the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and search for MIAs [Annotator’s Note: Missing in Action]. After the war, he worked for a dairy farm. Then he worked for a yogurt company. Yogurt was a new product. It was sour milk.

Joseph Kagan remembers crossing the Rhine River. The Germans were on the high ground and shooting at the bridge. Capturing a prisoner was a big deal. They had good training. He had a good career in the dairy industry. He learned how to delegate information and responsibility in wartime. He had to gain the respect of the people he was leading. In World War Two, they were fighting for a good cause. Today, it is a different kind of fighting. Kagan is proud of his service. He has great respect for today’s soldiers. He has meetings with other veterans of the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. He does not think war should be the answer. It is not worthwhile repeating what they already did. He thinks that today, negotiations should happen instead of fighting on the ground. He does not think young children know much about the war. Germany is an ally now. The only thing that is not forgotten is the Holocaust [Annotator's Note: also called the Shoah; the genocide of European News during World War 2]. Education is important. People should be well educated. They should study the political world.