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Today's
Stories
November 27, 2003
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
November 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
November 13, 2003
Jack McCarthy
Veterans
for Peace Booted from Vet Day Parade
Adam Keller
Report
on the Ben Artzi Verdict
Richard Forno
"Threat Matrix:" Homeland Security Goes Prime-Time
Vijay Prashad
Confronting
the Evangelical Imperialists
November 12, 2003
Elaine Cassel
The
Supremes and Guantanamo: a Glimmer of Hope?
Col. Dan Smith
Unsolicited
Advice: a Reply to Rumsfeld's Memo
Jonathan Cook
Facility
1391: Israel's Guantanamo
Robert Fisk
Osama Phones Home
Michael Schwartz
The Wal-Mart Distraction and the California Grocery Workers Strike
John Chuckman
Forty
Years of Lies
Doug Giebel
Jessica Lynch and Saving American Decency
Uri Avnery
Wanted: a Sharon of the Left
Website of the Day
Musicians Against Sweatshops
November 11, 2003
David Lindorff
Bush's
War on Veterans
Stan Goff
Honoring
Real Vets; Remembering Real War
Earnest McBride
"His
Feet Were on the Ground": Was Steve McNair's Cousin Lynched?
Derek Seidman
Imperialism
Begins at Home: an Interview with Stan Goff
David Krieger
Mr. President, You Can Run But You Can't Hide
Sen. Ernest Hollings
My Cambodian Moment on the Iraq War
Dan Bacher
The Invisible Man Resigns
Kam Zarrabi
Hypocrisy at the Top
John Eskow
Born on Veteran's Day
Website of the Day
Left Hook
November 10, 2003
Robert Fisk
Looney
Toons in Rummyworld: How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East
Elaine Cassel
Papa's Gotta Brand New Bag (of Tricks): Patriot Act Spawns Similar
Laws Across Globe
James Brooks
Israel's New War Machine Opens the Abyss
Thom Rutledge
The Lost Gospel of Rummy
Stew Albert
Call Him Al
Gary Leupp
"They
Were All Non-Starters": On the Thwarted Peace Proposals
November 8/9, 2003
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Zionism
as Racist Ideology
Gabriel Kolko
Intelligence
for What?
The Vietnam War Reconsidered
Saul Landau
The
Bride Wore Black: the Policy Nuptials of Boykin and Wolfowitz
Brian Cloughley
Speeding Up to Nowhere: Training the New Iraqi Police
William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report:
A Permanent Occupation?
David Lindorff
A New Kind of Dancing in Iraq: from Occupation to Guerrilla War
Elaine Cassel
Bush's War on Non-Citizens
Tim Wise
Persecuting the Truth: Claims of Christian Victimization Ring
Hollow
Toni Solo
Robert Zoellick and "Wise Blood"
Michael Donnelly
Will the Real Ron Wyden Please Stand Up?
Mark Hand
Building a Vanguard Movement: a Review of Stan Goff's Full Spectrum
Disorder
Norman Solomon
War, Social Justice, Media and Democracy
Norman Madarasz
American Neocons and the Jerusalem Post
Adam Engel
Raising JonBenet
Dave Zirin
An Interview with George Foreman
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert and Greeder
November 7, 2003
Nelson Valdes
Latin
America in Crisis and Cuba's Self-Reliance
David Vest
Surely
It Can't Get Any Worse?
Chris Floyd
An Inspector
Calls: The Kay Report as War Crime Indictment
William S. Lind
Indicators:
Where This War is Headed
Elaine Cassel
FBI to Cryptome: "We Are Watching You"
Maria Tomchick
When Public Transit Gets Privatized
Uri Avnery
Israeli
Roulette
November 6, 2003
Ron Jacobs
With
a Peace Like This...
Conn Hallinan
Rumsfeld's
New Model Army
Maher Arar
This
is What They Did to Me
Elaine Cassel
A Bad
Day for Civil Liberties: the Case of Maher Arar
Neve Gordon
Captives
Behind Sharon's Wall
Ralph Nader and Lee Drutman
An Open Letter to John Ashcroft on Corporate Crime
November 5, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Just
a Match Away:
Fire Sale in So Cal
Dave Lindorff
A Draft in the Forecast?
Robert Jensen
How I Ended Up on the Professor Watch List
Joanne Mariner
Prisons as Mental Institutions
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Not Organizing Iraqi Resistance
Simon Helweg-Larsen
Centaurs
from Dusk to Dawn: Remilitarization and the Guatemalan Elections
Josh Frank
Silencing "the Reagans"
Website of the Day
Everything You Wanted to Know About Howard Dean But Were Afraid
to Ask
November 4, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing
Said and Ashrawi: When Did "Arab" Become a Dirty Word?
Ray McGovern
Chinook Down: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Vietnam
Woodruff / Wypijewski
Debating
the New Unity Partnership
Karyn Strickler
When
Opponents of Abortion Dream
Norman Solomon
The
Steady Theft of Our Time
Tariq Ali
Resistance
and Independence in Iraq
November 3, 2003
Patrick Cockburn
The
Bloodiest Day Yet for Americans in Iraq: Report from Fallujah
Dave Lindorff
Philly's
Buggy Election
Janine Pommy Vega
Sarajevo Hands 2003
Bernie Dwyer
An
Interview with Chomsky on Cuba
November 1 / 2,
2003
Saul Landau
Cui
Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off
Noam Chomsky
Empire of the Men of Best Quality
Bruce Jackson
Midge Decter and the Taxi Driver
Brian Cloughley
"Mow the Whole Place Down"
John Stanton
The Pentagon's Love Affair with Land Mines
William S. Lind
Bush's Bizarre Korean Gambit
Ben Tripp
The Brown Paste on Bush's Shoes
Christopher Brauchli
Divine Hatred
Dave Zirin
An Interview with John Carlos
Agustin Velloso
Oil in Equatorial Guinea: Where Trickle Down Doesn't Trickle
Josh Frank
Howard Dean and Affirmative Action
Ron Jacobs
Standing Up to El Diablo: the 1981 Blockade of Diablo Canyon
Strickler / Hermach
Liar, Liar Forests on Fire
David Vest
Jimmy T99 Nelson, a Blues Legend and the Songs that Made Him
Famous
Adam Engel
America, What It Is
Dr. Susan Block
Christy Canyon, a Life in Porn
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Albert & Guthrie
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best
Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!
October 31, 2003
Lee Ballinger
Making
a Dollar Out of 15 Cents: The Sweatshops of Sean "P. Diddy"
Combs
Wayne Madsen
The
GOP's Racist Trifecta
Michael Donnelly
Settling for Peanuts: Democrats Trick the Greens, Treat Big Timber
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Diary: Iraqis are Naming Their New Babies "Saddam"
Elaine Cassel
Coming
to a State Near You: The Matrix (Interstate Snoops, Not the Movie)
Linda Heard
An Arab View of Masonry
October 30, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Popular
Insurrection and National Revolution in Bolivia
Eric Ruder
"We Have to Speak Out!": Marching with the Military
Families
Dave Lindorff
Big
Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished"
Philip Adams
"Everyone is Running Scared": Denigrating Critics of
Israel
Sean Donahue
Howard Dean: a Hawk in a Dove's Cloak
Robert Jensen
Big Houses & Global Justice: A Moral Level of Consumption?
Alexander Cockburn
Paul
Krugman: Part of the Problem
October 29, 2003
Chris Floyd
Thieves
Like Us: Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton
Robert Fisk
Iraq Guerrillas Adopt a New Strategy: Copy the Americans
Rick Giombetti
Let
Them Eat Prozac: an Interview with David Healy
The Intelligence Squad
Dark
Forces? The Military Steps Up Recruiting of Blacks
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors
as Therapists, Phantoms as Terrorists
Marie Trigona
Argentina's War on the Unemployed Workers Movement
Gary Leupp
Every
Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures
October 28, 2003
Rich Gibson
The
Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003
Uri Avnery
Incident
in Gaza
Diane Christian
Wishing
Death
Robert Fisk
Eyewitness
in Iraq: "They're Getting Better"
Toni Solo
Authentic Americans and John Negroponte
Jason Leopold
Halliburton in Iran
Shrireen Parsons
When T-shirts are Verboten
Chris White
9/11
in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective
October 27,
2003
William A. Cook
Ministers
of War: Criminals of the Cloth
David Lindorff
The
Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer
Elaine Cassel
Antonin
Scalia's Contemptus Mundi
Robert Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia
John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls
Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us
Bill Kauffman
George
Bush, the Anti-Family President
October 25 / 26,
2003
Robert Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets' Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
October 24, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's
War on Greenpeace
Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews
Jeffrey St. Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited
Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty
David Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button
Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East
Harry Browne
Northern
Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
November
27, 2003
Of
Heroism, Cowardice and Honesty
An
Account of One Soldier's War
By
JACK WILSON
The
Buffalo Report
Editor's Note: I never met Jack Wilson, but I know what he
looks like. He's the old man who sat in the second row during
both days of the War and Media Conference at University at Buffalo
earlier this month. When he left the auditorium, he walked with
a limp and used a cane. He asked a good question and made a telling
remark during the panel in which three journalists talked about
what they had seen in Iraq and how they had reported it. The
next day, he sent me a long email about the responsibility of
the press in telling people the truth about war and violence.
I responded and he wrote a longer letter back in which mentioned
a personal memoir about the awfulness of war he'd written for
his children and grandchildren. I asked to see it. He sent me
the letter he wrote to his family, and the memoir in which he
told them what he knew about heroism, cowardice, and the continuing
price of war. I read it transfixed, as I expect you will.
Bruce Jackson, editor, The
Buffalo Report
For years your mother has been urging (nagging?)
me to write down an account of my wartime experiences but for
years I have procrastinated on the matter. With the situation
developing as it has over the past few months particularly the
situation in Iraq and the failure of the news media to convey
in any way the realities of war I have finally taken the plunge
and have put together the accompanying account. I trust that
if you ever come to advocate war - and there are times when this
may be necessary - that you will remember the price that will
have to be paid by those who actually carry on the fighting.
Even those who emerge physically unscathed from combat carry
with them an emotional burden that we now call post-traumatic
stress syndrome. It may not show but it can be as destructive
as any bodily wound.
I have dealt at some length with the
issue of heroism and cowardice because the term, "hero,"
is being tossed about so lightly by the media and by officials.
For me the terms have become almost meaningless as I hope you
will gather from my account of some of the things that happened
to me and my reaction to them. Although some aspects of the technology
of war have changed dramatically I do not believe, from what
I have recently read and seen, that the essence of war for the
soldier who has to fight that war on the ground has changed all
that much. It is still hellish but I'm afraid that we tend to
see it as nothing more than flashes on a TV screen and staged
raids illuminated by night-vision glasses.
If you would like to share this material
with anyone else, feel free to do so. I just hope that a record
of my experiences and reactions may help others to come to appreciate
some of the complexities surrounding these matters and also come
to view war as something other than a painless, bloodless experience
of victory over the forces of evil.
An Account of One
Soldier's War:
To My Children and Grandchildren
Once, long ago, I was a hero, or, at
least some people said that I was. I have also been a coward,
then and many times since, or, at least it seemed so to me at
the time. Today I am not so sure about either. During the recent
war in Iraq, I kept reading about American heroes. Often it seemed
as though the misfortune of getting killed was sufficient to
convert the dead soldier to a hero. Still, I wonder. What makes
a hero or a coward? A friend of mine asked me that question a
few months ago and the only way I could frame a satisfactory
answer was to tell him of some of my experiences as hero and
coward - experiences I had previously shared with only one other
person. As I have thought about this secrecy and, in spite of
a certain amount of shame that I still carry with me, it seemed
appropriate to share those memories with those closest to me.
Thus this open letter to all of you.
About 15 months after I was drafted into
the U.S. army in July 1943, I arrived in Belgium (in the autumn
of 1944) as a "replacement" infantryman, and became
a machine gunner. At that moment, the war was not going well.
Fighting on D-day and in the hedgerows of Normandy had been very
costly in casualties. Then, after the mad rush across France
following the collapse of German lines in Normandy, German units
reorganized and manned the Siegfried Defense Line along the western
German border. American, British, Canadian and French forces
had been attacking that line for weeks with little to show for
it but high casualty rates. Thus the need for infantrymen to
replace those lost in battle. That is why I found myself transported
to the lines of the 28th Infantry Division then participating
in this assault. I was assigned to Company G, 2nd Battalion,
112th Infantry Regiment and, by the luck of the draw, was given
a machine gun. (At least, this is what I recall after nearly
sixty years.)
I do remember very clearly being told
on the way to the front lines that the Germans were on "their
last legs," that American artillery was firing ten shells
for every German shell that arrived on American lines. Shortly
after we reached the "front" and had dug our first
real foxholes, the German artillery started their bombardment.
For the next week that became the story of our lives - move to
a new position, dig a new hole in the ground, try to get some
sleep, and hope and pray that you would survive the next artillery
barrage. I have no idea of how many shells American artillery
fired at the Germans but we remained convinced that there were
ten German shells raining on us for every shell that hit the
Germans.
My first experience of death involved
our platoon Sergeant (I can't remember his name), a married man
with a couple of children. Here was a man who had much to live
for. I remember so clearly how careful he was in digging his
foxhole. Most of us just dug a hole down until we got tired (often
before the hole was very deep) and, with our foxhole buddy took
turns sleeping and standing guard. Not our Sergeant, however.
Every hole he dug was a masterpiece. Since we were in the forests
that covered the German-Belgium border lands, he and his foxhole
buddy dragged fallen logs to cover the top of their foxhole,
in the hope of remaining protected from the rain of shrapnel
(the ragged pieces of steel from the artillery shell casing that
flew out from that shell when it exploded) that descended upon
us. It wasn't enough. One large piece of shrapnel apparently
entered through the opening, or perhaps cut through the logs,
and hit him in the head. I speak here from hearsay. I had no
desire to witness his remains. All I could think of was that
he was that really nice guy who had passed out our cigarette
rations just the evening before, who had tried to ease our fears
and uncertainties - a guy with a family to go back home to. Then
he was alive; now, he was no more.
After five days (as I recall) of rather
intense shelling, both day and night, with randomly spaced short
breaks in between barrages, we were relieved by another infantry
outfit and went back to a rear area where supposedly we could
reorganize and quiet our shattered nerves. In my experience nothing
is worse than trying to survive continuing artillery barrages.
One can do nothing but cringe in a hole in the ground and hope
for the best. Everyone becomes adept at predicting where an incoming
shell will land, or at least whether it is likely to land near
your location. The whistle of the shell tells it all. There is
nothing whatsoever that one can do except wait and hope and pray
- and smoke cigarette after cigarette in hopes of calming raw
nerves. Even today as I read about the bombing or shelling of
an area I think of the people down there on the ground who are
trying to survive just as I tried those many years ago. That
experience is the next closest thing to hell that I have ever
experienced.
One of the most meaningful descriptions
I have ever encountered of life under shelling or bombing, I
found in a work of fiction, a story by Jean Stubbs. She wrote,
speaking in the voice of one character, "I remember Ethel
talking about the Manchester blitz [bombing raids]. 'Crouched
in the cupboard under the stairs for eight hours, with an old
woman and a new baby, wondering whether the next bomb had our
number on it. Afterwards they said, "Britain can take it!"
As if we were heroes. There was nothing to do but take it. We
had no choice. Just sit there in the shelter and take it and
wonder if we were going mad along with the rest of the world.'"
There is a terrible randomness about
it all, a randomness that creates a sense of absolute helplessness.
Nothing one can do will really make any difference. The trajectory
of that incoming shell was determined long before you, the possible
victim, even knew it was on its way. If the whistle signals that
this time you are safe, you feel such a sense of relief and,
frankly, no concern for those who may be the victims. When the
whistle indicates a close one, you suddenly feel the shock of
the blast as the shell explodes. If you are lucky this time,
there is still the next one to worry about. That is the reality
of being on the receiving end of bombing raids or artillery barrages
- and the fear builds and builds.
The longer one survives, the more fearful
one becomes that your turn can't be far off. That laws of averages,
you think, is bound to catch up with you. Never do you become
accustomed to the terror. With each renewal of the shelling,
your nerves are less able to take it. To give you an idea of
the extent to which our nerves had become jangled raw, after
those few days of intense shelling, when we first arrived at
the rear area and were being fed a real hot meal for a change,
someone in line dropped his mess-kit. The kit, being metal made
quite a racket when it struck the ground. Everyone of us in that
line dived for the ground. By that time, noise, any noise, meant
danger. After a moment, we began looking at each other rather
sheepishly, got up and continued moving toward the front of the
chow line. Think what must happen to those who are subjected
to such attacks for weeks or months. I can't imagine it. After
this taste of combat - it didn't seem like combat, only a random
slaughter that most of us managed to survive - our division was
moved to a quiet sector so that officers and non-coms could reorganize
the mass of new men (replacements like me) into a fighting unit.
The area to which we were sent was located along the Luxembourg
side of the German-Luxembourg border, a hilly, wooded area. Just
across the river marking the border were the German positions.
We could see them moving about (like stick figures) as they could
see us. Every day, each side fired a few shells into the lines
of the opposing army, I suppose as reminders that a war was still
going on but we lived quite comfortably in a bunker built by
some Allied force that had been there before us.
We had little to do and I suspect that
some of our officers became worried that our morale might deteriorate
because of the idleness. For whatever the reason, we found ourselves
each day out in the open, in view of German positions "policing"
(cleaning up) the areas around our bunkers. Most of what we picked
up consisted of ribbons of aluminum foil that had been dropped
by allied planes to confuse German radar. This exercise we found
infuriating. Risk a shell landing near us to clean up the area?
As you might imagine, a fair amount of cursing resulted. We blamed
the commanding officer of our sector, General "Blood and
Guts" Patton.
Although he was a hero to many, to us
Patton was a martinet, a stickler for discipline. Our reaction
to his nickname was, "yeah, his guts and our blood."
As you can see, the American citizen soldiers I came to know,
did not harbor an overly respectful attitude toward military
authority. That may be one of the really great things about a
citizen army. I recall much later, after the fighting was over,
that we encountered a substantial number of "displaced persons."
These young men had been taken from their homes by the Germans
and turned into slave labor. One time an English-speaking Polish
DP was chatting with a group of us when an American officer strolled
by. As soon as the officer disappeared the Pole commented on
how sloppy our salutes were and demonstrated how he had been
taught to salute. We remained unimpressed and maintained our
sloppy ways since we never ceased being civilians at heart.
After about three weeks in this "safe"
location, with little reorganization accomplished that we privates
were aware of, word came down that the entire division was to
be sent back to a rear area in France so that we could accomplish
a thorough reorganization. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of
this explanation but it is what we believed at the time. My battalion
was among the first to be moved out. We spent our first night,
December 15, 1944 in a Belgian (or Luxembourg) town and had a
great night's sleep. Very early the next morning, the German
panzer divisions attacked in force, beginning what came to be
called the "Battle of the Bulge." Their point of attack
was the Luxembourg-German border, precisely where we had been
stationed. The attack cut our division and the one holding the
area just north of us to pieces - many taken captive. From our
comfortable beds we were aroused to return to the front and launch
a counter-attack.
This was the beginning of what I have
always thought of as my combat experiences. This was really fighting.
Previously we had simply been cowering in holes in the ground
while the shells landed all around us. That did not seem like
fighting, only killing and maiming. I think that it was as we
marched forward into battle that I saw my first dead German soldier.
He was lying in the street, face up, with a bullet hole in his
forehead. I recall someone saying, "that was damned good
shooting." I discovered that I was less calloused. My reaction,
and I remember it clearly, was that here was another human being
whose life had been snuffed out. Since he was obviously older,
I remember wondering if he had been married and with a family
like our Platoon Sergeant who had died in his foxhole.
Sometime, during the next few days, as
we fought a chaotic series of engagements with enemy forces,
I played the role of coward. The sequence of events is more than
a little vague but I do recall at some point being pinned down
by German rifle and machine gun fire on what I recall as a hill
top, wooded but not heavily forested. We could see approximately
where the Germans were entrenched and could hear the bullets
whistling and cracking over our heads. I think it was the company
commander who called for the machine gun squad to run forward
to where we could engage enemy forces. I had the machine gun
and, frankly, I was scared - I mean, you could hear the bullets
flying around. Getting up to run forward seemed suicidal. I froze
in position on the ground. My body said, "no way."
Suddenly, one of the members of my machine
gun squad, rushed by me, throwing his ammunition boxes in my
direction and grabbing my machine gun, he ran forward to where
we had been ordered to set up the gun. I still have a vivid mental
picture of that young man racing forward with the machine gun
while I cowered on the ground. It is not a pleasant memory. No
matter how I have rationalized the situation, there is still
of measure of shame attached to the memory of my behavior.
I am sure you can imagine how I felt.
I stood disgraced before my fellow soldiers, and most importantly,
in my own eyes. I felt about an inch high. To redeem myself,
I grabbed the ammunition boxes and ran forward and joined the
rest of the squad. As I recall, no one ever said anything about
the incident, at least to me, but I knew what I had and had not
done. Until I mentioned this incident to my friend in Tucson
a few months ago I had shared it with only one other person.
I was too ashamed. Now, I think it is only right that you should
know this as well as all the other things you know about me.
I no longer feel guilty. I am not at all sure that the kinds
of behavior that we call heroic or cowardly really qualify for
those designations. To get up and run in the face of machine
gun fire is an utterly irrational act. To do what I did a week
or so later when I suddenly became a hero, was equally irrational.
Consider the demands on the human body and mind and conscience
in a situation of this kind. One of the most basic as well as
among the most powerful of drives is that of self-preservation.
Almost as powerful, and in some cases more so, is the learned,
social drive to merit the approval of ones fellow human beings.
In the kind of situation I described above, these two powerful
forces come into full conflict with little opportunity for equivocation.
I think you can at least imagine the kind of psychological stress
this places upon the human being facing this kind of dilemma
- satisfy the one demand and you think you will die; satisfy
the other and you stand shamed.
After our first day of fighting the German
attack on December 16th we in our lonely battalion spent the
next four or five days or so (or perhaps it was a week) behind
German lines, cut off from American forces. All was chaos. We
did manage to commandeer some army trucks that had been abandoned
by fleeing American forces, so for the next few days we rode
rather than walked. Had we been behind our own lines this would
have been a relief but tensions were high, particularly whenever
we entered a town for we never knew whether the empty-looking
town or village had been abandoned, of if it was held by German
troops waiting to spring a trap. It's a scary experience to enter
a town fearing the ringing out of shots signaling an ambush.
At times like these everyone becomes trigger happy - shoot first
and question later. (I often think that many of the examples
of what we call atrocities, shooting women and children for example,
grow out of these kinds of tense, trigger-happy situations.)
Any time a nation chooses to go to war, these kinds of situations
arise. Imagine, if you can, the guilt that permeates the psyche
of the soldier who, expecting an enemy, fires quickly and kills
a little child opening a door.
At one point we ran out of food and had
nothing to eat or drink for an entire day. It's amazing how hungry
you can get after just 24 hours. Then, we came upon an abandoned
U.S. Army warehouse stacked with cartons of food left by fleeing
American troops. I remember gorging ourselves on fruit cocktail
- we had been living on dry army rations that were somewhat less
than appetizing. For water, we became desperate enough to drink
the muddy water that had collected in the ruts created by the
tires of army vehicles.
Toward the end of this period of combat,
our battalion was attached to an armored force as infantry support.
We did very little supporting. I remember lying on a hillside
watching a tank battle taking place in the valley below. Our
tanks looked like toys madly dashing around with all too many
destroyed by what appeared to be deadly accurate German fire.
So far as we could see, it was a bad defeat for American forces.
When the entire unit began retreating around evening, we were
ordered to climb on the outside of a number of armored vehicles
and cling for dear life to whatever we could grab hold of meanwhile
holding fast to our weapons as well. As we rocketed down the
dirt road to the little town of St. Vith in Belgium, we ran the
gauntlet of German positions on both sides of the road pouring
rifle and machine gun fire at us. We were so occupied by trying
to maintain a grip on the vehicle, we could not even think about
returning fire. That "running of the gauntlet" of fire
was the worst combat experience that I had. I don't know how
many casualties we suffered.
Finally, we managed to make contact with
American forces and were sent to an abandoned boarding school
for the night and the next day. It was Christmas eve; that night
we slept in a bed with sheets, the first time in months. On Christmas
they treated us to a Christmas dinner of turkey with all the
trimmings. What an unbelievable contrast to the experiences of
the days just before.
As I recall, on the next day we were
sent back to the fighting front, this time our detached battalion
was attached to another division since we understood that our
division had been so devastated that it had been put out of action
for the time being - two of the regiments, we heard, no longer
existing as fighting forces - at least this is what we believed
at the time. I think it is a fairly accurate picture of the situation.
The order of events over the next few
days is extremely vague in my memory. I can recall particular
incidents but not the actual sequence of what happened when.
I remember clear, blue skies swarming with clouds of black Allied
planes. Heavily overcast skies, grounding Allied planes, had
provided ideal weather for German troops attacking our lines
in mid-December. Once the skies cleared and the air force could
fly again, the German attack was halted. Air power, not tanks
or infantry stopped the German drive.
Once the German breakthrough had been
halted, the long, painful, bloody process of regaining lost territory
began, often a matter of gaining a few yards per day at heavy
cost. I recall another incident of being pinned down by German
fire, once again in a wooded area. As I lay on the ground under
a tree, I could hear an American soldier somewhere off to my
left say to one of his buddies, "The next time that German
sticks his head up I'm going to get him." A moment or two
later I heard a shot followed by a shout of triumph, "I
got 'im." I felt almost sick to my stomach. Irrational as
it may seem to you, I felt as though I had witnessed a cold-blooded
murder, a deliberate, pre-meditated killing of another human
being.
As a machine gunner, I quite possibly
killed and maimed more Germans than that soldier did but I don't
know whether I could have brought myself to fire at a human that
I could see. Fortunately, I never had to face that situation.
All of my shooting was done at a distance. I don't know how I
would have reacted had I found it necessary to shoot someone
I could see. It's a horrible thing to contemplate. I would not
want to live with the memories of men falling under fire from
my gun. Consider once again the clash of imperatives facing a
soldier: on the one hand the drive for self-preservation, on
the other a lifetime of social conditioning against taking another
human's life. No wonder so many soldiers return as psychological
cripples. (Among all the accounts of battle in the recent Iraq
war that I have encountered, one stands out. An American soldier,
under attack, shot at an Iraqi soldier and then through his telescopic
sight the American watched that Iraqi, "explode like a watermelon."
The American wanted no more combat after that. I just hope that
he can survive his nightmares over the next few years. I can't
help but wonder if he will become one of the homeless men that
wander our cities.)
I think that it was a few minutes later
that I was wounded. As well as I can remember, a mortar shell
struck in the tree under which I was lying and exploded sending
a rain of shrapnel over the immediate area. I was unbelievably
lucky, although I didn't realize it at the time. All I felt was
a sledge-hammer-like blow to my left foot. I thought I had lost
my foot. I called for a medic, who crawled, under fire, up to
where I was and helped me crawl to a more secure location and
took care of the wound which turned out to be not all that serious,
just painful. (Talk about courage: there is a real example.)
Later as I examined myself, I found that my overcoat had been
cut in several places by other pieces of shrapnel and the pack
of cigarettes I carried in a pocket of my gas mask carrier had
been neatly sliced in two. I'll never understand how so many
pieces of shrapnel could land around me and only one manage to
strike. Something of a miracle. I have often thought that, since
that moment I have been living on borrowed time. Here it is 58
years later. That's a lot of borrowing.
Sometime during this period, as the lines
of combat became more stabilized, our battalion was ordered to
close the remaining gap between the American and British forces
to the north of the Bulge and the American armies to the south.
As we were informed, the gap was a couple of miles wide. We were
to cross the gap, this no-man's land, and leave two soldiers
every hundred yards or so in order to establish communication
across the gap. As we moved forward to carry out this mission,
we came under intense artillery fire. The area was heavily wooded
and we had proceeded along one of the "fire breaks"
in the woods - a cleared path that created to stop the spread
of a forest fire. Unfortunately the Germans assumed that this
was precisely what we would do and had aligned their artillery
to cover these firebreaks.
Confronted with this situation, we ran.
It seemed like suicide to stay. Our one thought was to get out
of there. I often think of this incident when I see one of our
super-patriots displaying the red, white and blue and proclaiming
that these colors don't run. Yeah! We ran with or without the
colors. It might have been courageous to stay and get killed
but it would have been absolutely stupid. We ran but we came
back to fight another day which is more than a dead hero can
do. Again, details remain vague but at some point during that
night, as we moved across the gap between American lines, we
encountered a German machine gun emplacement. Our lead scout
was cut down by fire from that German position. The company commander
called me forward - by then I was the only machine-gunner left
in the company - and asked (not ordered) me if I would stay behind
and cover the advance of the rest of the company with fire from
my machine gun. I must confess, that, strange as it may seem
to you, I was not at all frightened and readily agreed to do
as he asked. A lieutenant guided me forward to a position from
which I could fire but I didn't like his choice of location so
said, if he didn't mind I would prefer to be off to the side
in a little hollow where the return fire would more likely go
over my head. As I recall I was thinking very clearly and rationally,
analyzing the situation and taking what precautions I could.
My lieutenant pointed out the approximate
location of the machine gun nest and then returned to the rest
of the company. They, in turn, then began to slip forward through
the night. As soon as they moved, the German began firing his
machine gun and I returned fire with mine. He was silenced at
least for the moment. Then a second machine-gunner opened up
and I recall swinging around to fire at him and he also stopped
shooting. When all of our company had moved forward, the lieutenant
returned for me and we proceeded safely past the danger area.
At no time did I feel afraid. Perhaps I was too busy to be scared.
What I remember most clearly is that the barrel of my machine
gun was hot from being fired so long and so rapidly. This was
January and it was bitterly cold. As I wrapped my fingers around
the barrel guard, my hands felt warm for the first time in I
don't know how long.
Later that night as we approached the
American lines on the other side of the Bulge, the Captain was
going to leave me and a buddy as one of the links in the chain
of communication. My lieutenant intervened and suggested that
since mine was the only machine gun we had, it might be better
to keep it with company headquarters. The captain agreed and
I made it to the other side, thankfully - one of the few times
I was pleased to be a machine gunner. When we did finally reach
Allied lines, there were, as I recall, less that twenty of us
remaining in the company out of the 200+ who had belonged to
company G back in the previous November. We had no idea if we
would ever see any of those men again. (Actually we did, although
I can't remember how many.)
Suddenly I was the hero of company G.
That young man who, many weeks before had carried the machine
gun forward while I froze to the ground, later came up to me
and told me how proud he was to know me. Yet, I did not then
and do not now regard my action as in any way heroic. How can
you be heroic when you are not even afraid. It was simply pure
action, a job to be done.
Not long after that episode, I was put
out of action, permanently as it turned out. We continued to
fight but what I recall is not what you would call fighting but
rather marching and digging. We would march to a new location,
dig our foxholes, try to get some sleep between turns at standing
guard and then move and dig another hole. It did not take long
for us to become totally exhausted. One day while marching to
another new location (for a reason unknown to us) as we crossed
a fence line, I was so tired that I failed to lift my foot high
enough and tripped over the fence wire. I landed face down in
the dirt while the machine gun I carried over my shoulder slammed
into the back of my head knocking me unconscious. I suffered
a concussion and was sent back to a hospital in Liege, Belgium,
known at the time as "buzz-bomb-alley." But that is
another story. (I had had one brief acquaintance with these German
rockets, the V1 type that we called buzz-bombs because of the
horrible racket they made. I think it was the night we were traversing
the firebreaks in the woods that one passed just a hundred feet
or so over our heads. That was scary. )
Because Germany surrendered a couple
of months later, my combat days proved to be over, thank God.
My prayers had been answered - to be hurt badly enough to escape
combat but not serious enough to devastate my life. I was one
of the lucky ones. I once mentioned to a combat veteran of the
Vietnam war that I had prayed to "be hit just a little bit."
He replied that so had he as had all the veterans he knew. I
think for most of us, our one wish was to get out of the horrors,
the fears, the cold of combat. I never wanted to go back and
while in the hospital only met one combat veteran who expressed
any desire to get back to his outfit. I suspect that this was
not a universal reaction but we were almost all replacements;
we had had no long association either with the outfit to which
we had been assigned or with the men in it.
Two other events from this time are worth
recounting, I think. Both occurred in rear areas, well away from
the fighting. I believe that it was in late March or early April
of 1945 that we were sent up to the recently conquered city of
Frankfort, Germany. At first we were quartered in an office complex
that had been owned by the I. G. Farben Company, a manufacturer
of chemical products. I believe it was there that our unit set
up the kitchen tents in an open area. Outside the tents, were
rows of garbage pails. As we waited in line for our very generous
rations, we could see middle aged German women rooting about
in the garbage cans trying to secure enough food for themselves
and I assume their families. Some plunged their arms in to the
elbow and then shoved whatever they could pull out directly into
their mouths. It was certainly an unappetizing view and I know
that I and others were badly shaken that people should have to
behave in this way just to get some food to eat.
About this same time, as we prepared
to serve as an army of occupation, Headquarters decided that
American soldiers needed better living quarters than those we
then occupied. One morning we were transported to a relatively
untouched suburban area outside Frankfort and deployed around
the area. Residents were then informed that they had four hours
to gather what belongings they wanted and to vacate their homes.
We American soldiers were ordered to keep watch and make sure
that the process was orderly. I recall coming upon one family
who were panic stricken because they could not find the key to
their storage shed so they could remove some items inside. I,
like the 20 year old idiot that I was, pulled my .45 out and
shot the lock off the door. Family members were unbelievably
grateful. I found the whole process extremely distasteful. In
fact I was appalled and ashamed to be an American soldier driving
people out of their homes. Only in recent years has it occurred
to me that that action might be classified as ethnic cleansing.
This is war as I remember a little piece
of it over a very short period of time. I have never regretted
that I had these experiences, yet I would wish them on no one
else. A few months later, when it came my turn to be discharged,
my one thought was to get that discharge paper in my hand and
to make sure that there were no strings attached to me, no way
that "they" could get me back in. As one of my friends
said in later years, he made sure that it would take an act of
Congress to get him back in the armed forces. Me too!
Being discharged, even with no strings
attached does not end one's experiences of war. Memories linger
for years. Few combat soldiers can bring themselves to talk about
their experiences. Talking awakens memories that one would like
to bury. Other sensations trigger memories as well. For me it
was the perception of snow on evergreens. Most of our fighting
occurred in the forests of eastern Belgium, largely evergreen,
and in December and January 1944-45, often covered with snow.
In later years just traveling down a road lined with snow-covered
evergreens was sufficient to trigger the memories of combat.
A wave of fear would surge up from somewhere inside and I could
sense an intense desire to run and hide. It is only in the last
decade or so that I have been freed of this burden.
I have been plagued throughout my adult
years with bouts of depression. I do not know to what extent
my military experiences contributed to that psychological state,
but I find it impossible to discount the possibility that war
and personal depression are, at the very least, fellow travelers.
The psychological burdens of combat have to emerge in some ways.
Psychological problems are a likely outlet. I have mentioned
this particular psychological burden that I have carried to illustrate
that the costs of war can never be measured simply in terms of
the immediate casualties - in the toll of dead and wounded that
we total up at the end of a war. In Gulf War I, for example,
wartime American deaths from enemy action and accidents totaled
less than 300 soldiers. Yet in a recent accounting the Veteran's
Administration listed some 8,000 deaths, directly attributable
to that war, that have occurred in the decade since. Believe
me. War truly is hell.
This essay originally appeared in The Buffalo Report,
edited by CounterPunch contributor Bruce Jackson. Jack Wilson
can be reached through Jackson at: bjackson@buffalo.edu
Copyright 2003 by Buffalo Report, Inc.
Weekend
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