My Honor Flight (4 page)

I remember this so well
because I had serious head games going on by that time.  We were getting closer
and closer to combat.  Even though we were in a foreign country, the English
weren’t that different than us.  It felt like a summer camp.  But all the
training wore on me, with the talk about combat and killing.  They were
preparing us for the psychology of battle, and I was scared.  So when this
chance came up to forget about the war for a day, I embraced it.  I think the best
way I could describe it is when a kid’s summer vacation was over, and the next
day he’s back to school.  But multiplied by ten thousand.  Gut full of butterflies,
belching up stomach acid.  My old life was gone, and I was about to face death
in an unknown land.  At least for a day, almost three hundred men would get to laugh
and compete. 

So, the big day was to
start at one p.m., after lunch and church.  It was an absolutely beautiful day. 
Big cotton-ball clouds sat so crisp in a dark blue sky.  The temperature was in
the seventies, and a light breeze brought smells of fresh grass and
wildflowers.  It was green everywhere!  Like those pictures you see of England
where there are miles and miles of green. 

We had a big open field
in our training area, and men had spent all morning setting up the events.  Remember,
we were expecting almost three hundred GIs and at least a hundred civilians.  The
spectators would sit on a couple of hills near the field.  That gave everyone a
view.

Then the people started
showing up.  The first thing we noticed was that there were no young men.  All
older folks, kids, younger women.  We cussed about that, because a lot of the pretties
were married.  But it’s not like we were going to get to go on a date or
anything anyway—the best anyone could hope for was a brief conversation with a
pretty English lass.  And maybe the chance to show her that he was the best of
Buzz Company. 

Brass had decided that a
GI would escort each family to their viewing spot, so a bunch of us got in a
receiving line.  Remember, we hadn’t been around normal people for months.  So,
we all gobbled up the chance to talk with civilians.  Yeah, a lot of the guys
were slobbering after the young women, but a lot of us found more pleasure in
talking with the others.  The little kids, the older folks.  It was like being
at a county fair back home.  Some of the men picked up giggling kids and let
them ride on their shoulders.  I walked in with a group of three people.  There
was an old man, dressed in tweed and wearing one of those English flat caps. 
He had a woman with him, in her twenties.  His daughter, maybe?  And then a
little girl. 

The woman was a looker.  Tall,
blonde curls, bright blue eyes.  But I only had eyes for Debbie, so I made
small talk about the weather, and their beautiful country, and the fine
sporting events for the day.  I turned my attention to the little girl.

 “How old are you,
miss?”  I asked.

 “I’m seven!” she said.

 “Well, you’re big for
seven!” I said.

 “Yes, I have to be. 
Because my pop’s gone.  I have to be a big girl now,” she said cheerfully.

I shot a look at the adults. 
The man kept walking, eyes ahead, chin thrust forward.  But the woman looked at
me, and tears rimmed her eyes.  She blinked them away, reached over and clasped
my hand.  She squeezed it hard as we walked and stared into each others’ eyes. 
Then she nodded and blinked some more, and we turned toward the hill to get them
settled.

 “I hope you enjoy the
day today!” I put on my best cheerful voice.

The girl smiled back and
looked out on the field.  I reached out to shake the man’s hand.  He shook my
hand with a strong grip, and our eyes met.  His eyes were moist as well.  He
grabbed my hand with both hands and shook it firmly.  He didn’t say a word.  I
turned to the woman and awkwardly put out my hand.  She smiled through tears,
and reached up and hugged me tight. 

 “Good luck,” she
whispered in my ear.  As we separated, I looked her in the eyes again.  She
wasn’t talking about that day.  I smiled, but then turned and got the hell out
of there before I started bawling too.

The women brought
treats!  Real baked goods.  We weren’t expecting it, so we had to improvise
real quick, and bring out mess hall tables for all the food.  Then the women
told us we had to eat everything right away, so it didn’t spoil in the sun. 
So, we all got a serving of dessert.  The crowd cheered over us just eating!  I
had some kind of rhubarb crumble, and it was the best thing I’d tasted in years.

The first event was the
rope walk.  The rope was suspended three feet above the ground, between two
poles.  The winner was whoever could cross the most times.  Duncan was competitor
number six.  By the time he was up, the current leader had somehow managed to cross
back and forth one time—so he’d walked the rope twice.  But boy, was he ugly
doing it.  He was flapping his arms like a big bird and swaying out of control,
trying to keep his balance.  But he drew guffaws and cheers from the crowd. 
And when he made it across and back, he got a standing ovation from the crowd.

While he was waiting for
his turn, Duncan talked with the other competitors as they watched the
contest.  None of them had practiced more than a few days that week.  So when
it was his turn, he got the crowd going, motioning for applause as he climbed
the pole.  He wouldn’t go until the cheering was loud enough.  Pretty soon, all
the civilians were hooting and clapping, but it wasn’t enough.  He turned and
looked all around at the GIs all around, and motioned to them too.  We were
roaring pretty loud.  Duncan nodded, and stepped out onto the rope, acting all
tentative as he threw his arms out to try to maintain his balance.  Then he
dropped his arms and casually crossed it without any effort at all.  Everyone
started quieting down, trying to understand what they had just seen.  Then
Duncan turned, stepped on the rope again, and did a somersault!  He popped back
up on his feet and walked the rest of the rope.  The civilians went nuts!  They
cheered and whistled.  But the roar from the GIs turned to a collective groan,
and guys started yelling “Ringer!  Ringer!”  But they weren’t mad.  A handful
of kids ran down from the base of the hill and sat up close. 

Duncan, seeing he had an
audience like back home, made the most of it.  He walked backwards once.  Then
he asked for three balls, and juggled as we walked across.  Then he played
catch with three of the kids at the same time as he crossed again.  After eight
trips across, he jumped down from the pole and bowed.  The civvies loved it,
and even the GIs were OK with it.  He started the day off with a lot of style.   
The kids surrounded him and cheered, and they watched the final three
entrants.  Not one of them crossed the rope a single time.  

A little redheaded kid
looked up at Duncan and said, “Can I try?” 

Duncan looked down and
said, “Sorry kid, but...”  He paused.  He looked up and around.  Cap was one of
the official judges, and he was nearby.  “Cap, how about we let the kids try?”

Cap shook his head. 
“It’s too high.  Someone might get hurt.”

McIntire stepped up.  “We
can drop the rope, no problem.  Like a foot off the ground.”

We all stood around kind
of shocked, like we couldn’t believe we hadn’t thought of this.  Let the kids
compete too?

Cap shrugged.  “Let’s
give it a try.  But kids, you have to ask for permission.”

The kids jumped and
clapped, then sprinted back to their adults.  They squealed with delight as
they asked, and were given permission.

Chartelli, however, was
agitated as hell.  I couldn’t figure out why he looked so nervous.  I guess the
kids were going to rain on his selfish parade to make money or sweet-talk some
Brit dame.  He stormed off toward the barracks.  He really disappointed me.  He
wasn’t the kind of man I thought, and hoped, he was.

The events continued for
the next three hours.  After every Buzz Company competition, there was a
version for the kids, except for the shooting competition.  And in each one,
three hundred soldiers were yelling as loud as they could to cheer on those
kids.  You would have thought it was a real Olympics.  The funniest one was the
ammo box version.  They decided that a GI and a kid would stand side by side
and time how long they could hold the box.  But the kid’s box was empty, except
for rocks that were added based on the kid’s age.  I wish I’d had a camera,
because the men and the kids had the same red-faced grimace as they held boxes
probably thirty pounds different in weight.

The judges took the
winning kids’ names, and they planned to announce them at the closing awards
ceremony, right along with the winning men.

I watched Chartelli in
the bottle throw.  He was first up.  He hit only six bottles, and then walked
off the field.  That’s the only time I saw him during the day.  But it pissed
me off.  I was glad he wasn’t staying around, trying to drag anyone else down.

The final event was the hundred-yard
dash, and I’ll be damned if Harry Edwards didn’t end up winning!  None of us
could believe it.  We gathered around Harry and lifted him up on our shoulders,
chanting his new nickname:
Rooster!  Rooster!
  Then we heard the CO
calling out from a platform.  It was time for the final awards.

 “Attention everyone,
attention.  We have the final results, and now we present the awards.  In the
first event—”

The CO stopped talking
and looked back to his left at some disturbance.  We could see Chartelli
pushing his way through the crowd of men toward the platform.

 “What’s he doing?” said
Kozlowski through gritted teeth.

 “You know Chartelli, got
to be the center of attention,” said Gunderson.

 “Cap, should we stop
him?” someone asked.  Cap glared at Chartelli, waiting to see what was going to
happen.  Pretty soon, he was up on the platform with the CO.

They talked for a minute,
the CO nodding.  He turned back to the group. 

 “I’ve just been informed
that the children who won events today will receive the same medals as our Buzz
Company winners.”

The civilians clapped,
but the GIs went crazy!  I already told you how valuable the medals were to
us.  The thought that these kids would share in that value...  I was embarrassed
that I had tears in my eyes, and I looked to one side, and saw Kozlowski wiping
his eyes.  Then there was Franklin, doing the same thing.  I wasn’t embarrassed
any more.  We cheered and clapped.  I’m sure the civvies were confused by our
excitement. 

It was sad as the
civilians left.  In a few short hours, they made us feel like we were back
home.  There was a lot of handshaking and hugs and pecks on the cheek.  A fair
amount of hair-tousling for the kids, and more than a few tears all around.

In the end, the Ninth
platoon accomplished its original mission, which was to make some money. 
Torgeson won the arm wrestling medal.  Duncan won the rope walk.  Paul Taylor
won the three-mile run.  Harry “Rooster” Edwards won the hundred-yard dash.  So,
we won four events. 

But those medals were
like the gold medals from the real Olympics!   The winners passed them around
the platoon, and we marveled at them.  It was strange how we associated so much
value to a few pieces of scrap metal with a few words on them.  I would forever
associate those medals with life before war.  Life without war.  Every once in
a while after that, I would ask a medal winner to let me see their medal again,
and it would take my mind off whatever hellhole we were in for a few minutes as
I remembered that day.  And I would wonder what the kid who won the same medal
was doing that day.

And while it was nice
tripling our money with those wins, that was nothing compared with the pride of
being the platoon with the most medals won!

On D-Day, the Allied
Forces created sea paths across the English Channel.  They swept for mines, and
then it was a constant stream of ships from England to France.  They called
them highways.  Once we got near the coast, we were put in a transport boat. 
You know those little boats they drove up to the shore on D-Day, and the front
opened up?

Our assignment was Utah Beach. 
We didn’t know what to expect, but we knew we weren’t in the early landing
party.  That hopefully meant we wouldn’t get shot as soon as the boat landed.

That was a miserable
ride.  I was low on sleep.  I didn’t sleep at all the night before, so I had
been up for over twenty-four hours.  Have you ever stayed up all night?  Your
mind gets real fuzzy and heavy, and it’s hard to concentrate.  I was pissed off
about it, because of all the times I needed to be sharp, I was going into
battle already exhausted.  I just leaned against the wall of our transport,
resting my head against the cold steel.  My gut was raw.  I hadn’t been able to
eat due to nerves.  So I had butterflies, and they were acidic because I didn’t
have any food in my belly.  I was just running on adrenaline.

Our boat lurched up and
down in choppy waves as cold salt water constantly sprayed us.  The boat’s
engine banged and belched nonstop, and the exhaust stank.  There were plenty of
times in the war when my senses were attacked, but this time was bad.  Even more
than the physical side, what bothered me was the unknown, and the waiting.  I’d
been expecting this moment for weeks, and now that it was here, I wasn’t sure I
could pull it off.  I’d been pretty confident all the way up until now.  But
now that the time was here, I didn’t know what kind of a mess we were about to
step into.  I felt just terrible.

We were all quiet for a
long time, then Cap yelled out. 

 “Well, boys, this is
it,” he shouted.  “Swap your letters.”

We had this guy named
Dick McIntire in the company.  By trade, he was a plumber back in Muncie,
Indiana.  Back in training camp, he had an idea for everyone.  We all had
letters we had written to our loved ones back home, in case we got killed in
action.  The idea was that if something happened, a team member would take the
letter and make sure it got sent home. 

McIntire was a real smart
guy.  He found some tin somewhere, and some leather.  He worked for a couple of
weeks cutting that tin into squares about three inches on a side.  Once he had
enough of them, he got us all together, and showed how the metal could be used
to protect our letters.  Since we were going to be in water and harsh
conditions, paper wouldn’t survive.  So, he showed us how we could sandwich our
letter between two pieces of tin, then seal the edges of the tin with solder. 
Then he wrapped the square in leather, and sewed it shut.  Finally, he took a
hot piece of metal, and burned his initials into the leather.

 “It’s like dog tags,” he
said.  “If you don’t make it, a buddy can grab the letter, and carry it on. 
We’ll know whose it is, and we’ll be able to send it to his family.”

So there we stood,
swaying as the transport boat heaved.  With the big lurches, we would kind of
stumble and grab onto the man next to us, or a rope along the inside boat
wall.  The night before, we met as a group and decided that rather than
carrying our own, we would carry someone else’s.  That way if we lost someone
in the ocean or if someone got blown up by a mortar, we would at least still
have their letter.

It wasn’t very
ceremonious.  Tom Duncan was seasick as all get out, and kept vomiting in the back
corner.  We all looked pale as ghosts, like we all had been sentenced to an
execution in the next few minutes.  Someone handed out their square, and then
everyone was handing theirs out to their neighbor.  I traded with Petey. 

I watched around the
group as men traded squares.  Even the twins were grim.  They had a tendency to
be flippant when stress was real high, and that always relieved some tension. 
But they had no humor now.  They traded with each other.  I suppose they used
the same logic as me and Petey—better to trade with someone from near home.

Then it started raining.

I couldn’t believe it! 
Just when I thought I was at the bottom, this rain shower kicked up and
drenched us. 

 “Nah, no matter!” yelled
Chartelli over the roar of the boat and the waves and the rain. “We’re gonna
get wet as soon as we land anyway!”

We smiled.  He was
right.  And maybe the ocean would be warmer than the rain.  About five minutes
later, the Brit running our boat called out, and the front door dropped.

We charged forward and
jumped off the edge of the boat.  We immediately plunged into three feet of
water, and I remember inhaling sharply when I landed in it.  It wasn’t real
cold, but cold enough to make you notice.  We ran as hard as we could through
the water, but we were carrying a lot of gear, so we were moving in slow
motion.  The waves that came into shore knocked me off balance, and then when
the water receded, it would drag me back into the ocean a couple of steps.  It
was really hard to move. 

We all had our rifles
ready and watched the beach and the bluffs in front of us.  But there was no
gunfire.  We looked at each other as we moved forward—where were the krauts? 
As soon as we got to sand, we dived down on our bellies and looked around.  We
could hear faint gunshots, but they were way up past the bluffs by the beach. 
We had already taken the beach!  We all smiled and slugged each other on the
shoulders.  At least we were going to have a fighting chance, and not get
picked off as we lay on the beach.

All the movies show D-Day
as this real intense battle.  That sure happened over at Omaha Beach, and Utah
had a real fight early on.  But we didn’t see any combat on the beach at all. 
We made our way up the sea bluffs.  Cap had us eat lunch.  He said to eat all
we wanted, because it was going to get rough.  My nerves had subsided, and I
was starving.  I ate a bunch of food, and that made me feel a lot better.  I
was still sleep-deprived, but a full belly will go a long way toward fixing
that.

Our mission was to work
our way across some land and engage any enemies we could find.  We didn’t have
to go far.  We’d walked maybe an hour across a swampy bottomland area when we
ran into a group of krauts in a treeline.  They had fallen back from the beach
and they were shooting real wild—taking shots before we were in range, or
wasting multiple shots when we were behind cover.  We’d never seen real combat,
but we knew they were scared.  It helped us to see that the enemy wasn’t some
precise killing machine, but guys like us.  And these enemies looked sloppier
than us.  It boosted our confidence.

We were lying down in a big
hollow.  We were all near the top crest of the hollow, facing the enemy.  We
wouldn’t stick our heads up because they’d shoot.  Cap was crawling along
behind us, giving us encouraging words.

 “Just like we practiced
at drill, men.”

 “If you don’t kill them,
they’re going to kill you.”

 “This is war.  Shoot
them before they shoot you.  Do NOT hesitate!”

 “Don’t waste ammo.  Make
your shots count.  Cover your fellow soldiers.”

 “Anderson, keep that
barrel out of the dirt.  Watch yourself, men.”

It was soothing to hear
old Cap’s silky deep voice behind us, reassuring us and reminding us.  Bullets
were whining past and gunfire rattled from the trees, but we were calm. 

 “OK, men,” said Cap. 
“Duncan’s spotted three krauts on the left end of the treeline.  There are two
in the middle, and two on the right side, about one fourth of the way from the
end.  We’re going to charge them and take them.  We outnumber them thirty-one to
seven.  I want to see every one of you dumbasses smiling at me when this is
over in five minutes.”

We couldn’t help but
chuckle, but nerves were raw.  This was our first battle.

 “Ready.  And.  Charge!”
yelled Cap, and we jumped up and ran toward the tree line, firing our weapons. 
The krauts turned and bolted, but we dropped five of them.  The other two got
away, sprinting back over a hill.  We charged after them at full speed, trying
to catch them.  Just as we crested on the hill, I heard Kozlowski.  “Oh, shit!”
he said. “Hit the dirt!”

A flurry of bullets
whizzed past us.  We were all lying on the top of the hill, flat as pancakes. 
Those damn krauts had set a trap for us.  The seven in front were a decoy to
get us to chase them.  There must have been over fifty of them just over the
hill.  Kozlowski saved our asses that day.  He spotted them just as his head
cleared the hill.  Another five seconds, and they would have cut us into
ribbons.

 “Son of a bitch!” barked
Cap.  “Back it up, men!  Back down the hill!  Back to cover!”

We double-timed it back
down the hill, past the tree line of our battle and back to our hollow.  We were
all breathing hard, and we lay in the damp weeds.  I was watching the hill past
the tree line, and suddenly a line of helmets appeared at the crest of the
hill. 

Cap was really mad. 
“Suckered.  I was goddamn suckered.”  He pursed his lips and shook his head
over and over.

We just lay there
watching, and the krauts came down to the tree line.  They started shooting, so
we hunkered down in the hollow.

 “What do we do, Cap?”
asked Trumbull.

 “We wait until dark. 
Kill anyone that sticks their head over this hollow.”

That was one tedious
afternoon.  The days are real long in June, so we couldn’t do anything but lay
there, splayed out in all directions, watching for krauts.  They’d shoot rounds
over our heads on a pretty regular basis.  Every once in a while, one of us
would hold a gun up and fire toward the trees.  We didn’t want them to think
they could just walk up and lob grenades on us.  After what seemed like days,
it finally got dark.  We huddled down in the bottom of the hollow.

 “What do we do, Cap?”
someone asked.

 “We need to get help,”
said Cap.  “But the problem is, those damn krauts might have spread out and surrounded
us.  Anyone who goes out there has a pretty good chance of getting killed.”

 “With the clouds, it’ll
be hard to see anyone,” someone said.  “Where do we get help?”

 “We’ll have a field HQ
back near the beach.  It’s not far away.  We just need someone who can move
fast and quiet.”

 “I’ll go.”  It was Paul
Taylor.  No one said anything.  But I thought back to a fight we had with some
jarheads in England.  They made fun of Paul, saying he would be real useful in
night fighting.  That pissed us off, and we had a scrap with them.  But now... 
That sounds like one hell of a racist thing to say, but it was the facts—you
couldn’t see Paul near as well at night as the rest of us, because we were so
pale.  Those damned British springs didn’t have any sun at all.

Someone snickered and
said, “I guess those Marines were right!”  I couldn’t believe it.  I wasn’t the
only one thinking like that.  Cap didn’t say anything for a long time.  He
looked off into the distance, then back at Taylor.

 “It doesn’t have to be
you, son,” said Cap. “Anyone can go.  Your skin isn’t going to make that much
of a difference.”

 “I’m not volunteering ’cause
I’m black,” said Taylor.  “I’m volunteering because I’m the fastest guy in the
company, and I can run a long ways without getting winded.  If you want someone
to scrap, send Kozlowski.  If you want someone to talk them to death, send the
twins.  But if you need someone to run fast, I’m the one to go.”

Cap stared at Taylor for
a moment, then nodded.  He kept looking off into the dark, then looking back
into Taylor’s eyes.

Finally, he spoke. 
“Who’s got Taylor’s letter?”

Someone came forward with
the leather-bound square, and Cap took it.  “Paul, this one’s mine now.  I’m
not going to deliver it.  Come back with reinforcements at daybreak.”

 “Yes sir,” Paul
whispered, hoarse and strained.  He was nervous.  He pulled his helmet down
tight on his head and started walking toward the back of the hollow, in the
direction of the beach.   As he passed us, we all reached out and touched his
shoulders and arms.  He was walking through a wave of hands, and he nodded as
he walked. 

 “Go get ’em, man.”

 “Don’t take too long,
huh?”

 “Bring back a few
hundred guys, will ya?”

 “Hell, bring back some
tanks!”  Laughter broke out.

He took off running out
the back of the hollow.  There were no gunshots.  We strained to hear for about
ten minutes, but all we could hear was the buzzing of summer insects.

I slept like a baby that
night!  I know that’s hard to believe.  But remember that I had been up for
over thirty-six hours, and we were all sprawled on the ground in the hollow. 
We had guards all around, and it was quiet as a tomb.  I fell asleep
immediately, and didn’t wake up until someone nudged me.  There was a faint
glow on the horizon.  Daybreak was nearly upon us.

An Irish kid from Chicago
named O’Halloran was at the front hill of the hollow, and peeked over the
hill.  “Damn.  They’re still all there!  Looks like the same number as yester—” 
A gunshot fired and O’Halloran went limp.  Someone pulled him down the slope
and turned him over.  He was shot through the left cheek, just below the eye. 
He was dead.