I post a tribute every July 4th, to honor the people who've served. I've done conventional military stories in the past. So, this time I thought I'd do one from the standpoint of somebody who reported the war rather than fought it. Last year's was a coming-of-age tale. This one focuses on the importance of family. The atrocity that's central to the storyline occurred as I recount it, as did the payback. I hope you enjoy my little offering and please remember the people who sacrificed to give you the freedom that you're celebrating today... DT.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST
I was standing in a snowy field with a hundred or so other prisoners. It was bitterly cold, and we were deeply dispirited. The Krauts had put us in a line abreast, six rows deep, with our hands raised in abject surrender, I was in the middle of the fourth row.
We were looking around, trying to figure out what would happen next, when two half-tracks pulled up. A short time later, another came grinding up and parked between them. A Kraut in the third vehicle stood and took aim with a pistol. Two shots rang out and, to our absolute horror -- a couple of guys in the front row grunted and crumpled into the snow.
That set off the gunners in the other halftracks. They hosed us down with their MG 42s. At 1,200 rounds a minute, we never stood a chance. There were anguished screams as guys fell like so many stalks to the reaper. Ultimately, the shooting stopped and there was nothing but the eerie silence of death.
Then the Panzergrenadiers dismounted from their Kfz.251s. They were big kids, in their late teens, laughing and joking as they went around shooting, or brutally clubbing any poor soul who still had the breath of life in them. All-in-all... those were fun times for the Hitler Youth.
A 7.92 round had grazed the side of my helmet knocking it off and leaving me face-down unconscious - bleeding like a stuck pig. Fortunately, I was under a pile of bodies. So, the clean-up crew missed me.
Eventually I came-to, terrified. It was unnervingly quiet. I heard someone shout, "Let's go!!" And a few of the fellows who'd been playing dead jumped up and ran. The MG42s opened up again. A couple of guys fell, and a flock of SS pursued the rest toward a tavern at the crossroads. There, they proceeded to set fire to the building and shoot anybody who fled the flames.
It was the dead of winter, and it was getting close to dark. I was blanketed by as-yet warm bodies. So it seemed prudent to just keep lying there face down, lamenting the cruel fate that had brought me to the crossroads of Malmedy on that dark December day. I surreptitiously felt in my pocket for my worn picture of Jane and Peter. It was comforting to know that I would join them soon.
*****
I grew up in a German speaking part of Wisconsin. Back then we Huns tended to band together in little farming communities where German was still a common language, even if your family had been over for two generations.
Hence, most of us were bi-lingual. Still, The Great War had changed our neighbor's attitudes about Germans and so we all began to pronounce our names with a decidedly English cast. That's why I was Bill, not Wilhelm.
Our community was self-sufficient, and of course orderliness is one thing that Germans do better than anybody else. As a result, even though I grew up during the depression my childhood wasn't as hard as it was for people in the more citified areas. We made our share of sacrifices. But there was always food on the table and a good school to go to.
That was where I discovered my flair for writing. It wasn't anything I studied. An idea would just pop into my head, and the words would line themselves up like the boxcars on a passing train. I won a writing contest during high school and that brought me to the attention of Max Schlemiel.
Yes, I said Schlemiel... He'd inherited his unfortunate last name from some hapless ancestor. But Max was one very sharp cookie. He owned and published the local newspaper.
One steamy July day I was sitting on our front stoop drinking lemonade. It was hot and I was thinking about what to do with the rest of my life. That's when Max appeared. I didn't see him arrive. He must have come down the alley behind our big colonial house. In those days we used the alleys more than we did the streets.
He said without preamble, "Bill, I've got a job for you."
It was funny he should mention it. Since I didn't have a clue about what I was going to do with my life. Hey! I was a kid!! No eighteen-year-old has the course plotted. But I knew for sure that there had to be a "next" out there somewhere.
I said grumpily, "I don't want to be a paperboy." What the heck... that's all I could imagine Max'd ever want me to do. He laughed and said, "No, I need a reporter. I read the prize essay that you wrote, and I think you have potential as a cub."
Now that was intriguing. College was out of the question, we didn't have that kind of dough, and I didn't want to join the WPA, or be a fieldhand. My old man worked for the local Grange Association as an organizer. But I had no interest in keeping the local farmers happy.
So, I said warily, "How much do I make and when do I start?" Max said, "You can start anytime you want. I pay a dollar for a standard article and two bucks if you get a byline." That was a lot of money in '37. I said, "What's being a cub entail?" He said, "I give you a credential that says you're from the Times and you have to hunt up your own stories."
He saw the hesitant look on my face. How in the heck was I supposed to do THAT. So, he added, "Sometimes I get a tip I want a reporter to check out. If you can show me that you can dig up a few stories in the beginning, then I might send you out on those."
I appeared at the Times office bright and early the next morning, hair neatly combed. It was a rundown wooden shack on the main drag over by the movie theater. The only people working there were a couple of old guys and a woman. That was the entire staff of our eminent news organization.
The two men were the entire press corps and Mrs. Eldridge was Max's secretary. She was a widow lady, about eighty-five and she looked like a walnut with a whip cream topping. But she was still spry, and she ran the place like Black Jack Pershing ran the AEF.
She muttered suspiciously, "What're YOU here for?" I might have been offended. But that was the way she treated everybody. I said, "Max wants to talk to me about being a cub." She said skeptically, "He's down at the Hot Spot. You can talk to him there. But I doubt he's serious. What are you? About twelve?"
I said self-importantly, "Eighteen almost nineteen." Then I turned and headed for the door.
It was a steamy morning, very muggy, meaning a typical day in Wisconsin in July. That was before air-conditioning. Thus, it was stiflingly humid as I walked into the aptly named Hot Spot.
The Hot Spot was where everybody in town gathered. Hence, it was a tossup whether Max had gone there to get a morning cup of Joe, or snoop into the affairs of everybody else.
He was sitting with Barbara Pederson, the owner of the place and Doc Morton. They seemed to be having a neighborly chat while Barbara's three-year-old Dot entertained the customers by solemnly carrying menus back and forth to the tables like a waitress. Dot was a very determined little sprite.
