1944.
Second day of battle Germans slipped around and surrounded the town. The church is blown out and the wounded were placed on the floor of the church.
I went through the town to look for my friend. I found him on the floor of the church.
Listen Joe, I gotta go back, is there something I can do for you before I go back? Joe says, "Find me something to drink."
... He's a major, I'm a private, so ... he says, "What the hell are you doing soldier?" I say, "Giving aid and comfort to the wounded." He says, "You stupid bastard. Don't you know I got chest cases and stomach cases, you give 'em stuff, you'll kill 'em! Get outta here before I have you shot!"
Present day.
Vince describes his perspective as a boy of his first battle scene
... And it hits ya, this is where you were when you was nineteen years old, as a kid, and I says, "wait, no, no, Marco, if this was my foxhole, there was a stream over there because I remember that morning I broke the ice to fill up my canteen just before the mist came up we knew the Germans were going to attack. He says, "Yeah, he says, well you can't see it because of the grass. And we walked over there and goddamnit there was the stream and I says, "now I know for sure. This is where I was." And what comes back hittin' me now is that first morning of the battle...
Vince describes his perspective as a boy of his first battle scene and the commands of his commander to hold fire while waves of Germans become entangled in barbwire fence between the two armies that was hidden by snow and that neither side knew was there.
... The scene that came back to me. You know, when you're an old man you're not in control of your emotions anymore. I fell apart there. And my daughter said, "Eh, Father, let's go back." I get emotion just talk' about it. But we came back to Bastogne and I says, "Marco, eh, I take ya to lunch ..."
And then Vince's story gets really good.
To you, Vince! You stupid bastard.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/bayernbiere-bought-and-drunk.55872/page-10
Google images Airborne beer.
http://tinyurl.com/o2ylful
Brand new 101st Airborne museum Les Mess in Bastogne, Belgium.
http://www.101airbornemuseumbastogne.com
10 comments:
They weren't boys.
They were men.
(1) I'm about a third of the way through The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) directed by William Wyler. It was recommended by a lecture course in film history I listened to a little while back. So far it appears to be living up to its reputation as as one of the great films.
(2) We all get off the train at different stops and we change our minds from time to time but I've never liked it when old veterans wear their old uniforms. Makes them seem demented.
(3) My father served in the Navy at the tail end of WWII and then in the Korean War, without distinction. So far as I can tell, he enlisted because he couldn't get a job and support himself otherwise. He never had any tattoos but at age 73 he got a tattoo of a battleship across his chest. He never served on a battleship.
(4) I've heard it said that every man who has never seen battle is left to wonder whether he is a coward. I think there's a lot of truth to that or at least it's true as it applies to me, having never seen battle or even so much as ever served in the military.
Makes them seem demented.
That's because they've been somewhere that you'll never go, never understand. Your understanding of life is what you've been able to gather from going to the movies or watching tv.
Very cool story Chip. You have to watch the video to the end to get the gist of the post. Now I have to get my hands on some Airborne Beer.
"Band Of Brothers" really is a cool series.
I think Vince is wearing the uniform because he might be affiliated with the new museum. I'd bet money they hired him because of the beer thing. It is fitted for an old man, not for a scrawny nineteen year old. And I do not believe the patch is U.S. Army issue, although I could be wrong about that. All of that must have come after.
When I watched the video the first time I kept hoping he'd get back to the beer incident, and to my great relief he did. I honestly thought as the video slider moved to the right near ending he'd not get around to tying it back, that he'd wander off into his other descriptions. He really does make you understand those guys were only nineteen and everything new. Even with the huge difference between most nineteen year olds then and now, they were still boys. He calls himself a boy at that time.
And so is Bowe Bergdahl when he enlisted, if an arrogant young man, maybe a smarter than the usual bear still a very young man still in his teens, still a boy who is thinking, "I'll get out of Iowa and see the world by joining the Army." Studies Pashto and Dari to connect. Clever as he is, still stupid boyish decision, as is his message "if it's lame I'll just leave" without considering in a manly way the commitment he already made, the contract he is locked into, his status as deserter, without any real life perception of what was ahead of him, holding romantic (I dare say liberal) notions of how hardened enemies behave, and nothing at all about possible local and national ramifications of his behavior or actions. The opposite of Vince in the video, but both still boys at the time.
I would never have joined the Army voluntarily at that age or later. And I honestly do not understand the young men who did following 9-11, out of patriotism or an urgency to strike back. I flatly do not understand that. I kept thinking, "Don't they know what pure hell that is of a campout? They must be romantics, too young and too stupid, maybe both, to know what they're in for."
Vince makes all that crystalline clear when he describes the first battle he witnessed. When he describes fetching the beer and pouring it into his helmet. That is what a boy would do. It stinks up the beer! And then do it twice, back and forth, it's a boyish activity. And it made him famous, over there in that spot.
Now I want to try some of that beer too. I just bought a six-pack of Belgian dark malty lager from downstairs to have onhand on their recommendation and it tastes like crap. I used it to flavor my beans yesterday. I'll try it again from a glass before giving up on it. But I'll be looking for this stuff too. The helmet mugs are hilarious, a very sweet touch.
Chip Ahoy said ...
And I honestly do not understand the young men who did following 9-1...
Then you must really wonder what made some of us enlist in the period 1965 thru 1971. 1968 and 500 per week were KIA. But some enlisted. I did. Why is not to wonder about, it is to be. Just to be. Others went before you, so you went too. God bless them all, every one, those who hearts stopped, and those who were torn, in a faraway place. Not for them, but for you.
A fitting anthem for today is an old one, but appropriate for the invasion of Normandy,the battle for Hill 875, and the initial drop in to northern Iraq by the 173 Airborne Brigade Combat Team, all alone, when Turkey would not allow the 4th Infantry Division to cross their border to invade. See , our government was a political pussy then, too, but our soldiers were not.
God Bless them all, forever.
Chip Ahoy...I owe you an apology and this is it...my prior comment probably sounded critical (of you) and it was not really meant that way. Today is an emotional day for me...the kid who grew up on a block where most fathers were gone off to WWII, then Korea. Then my time in Vietnam and Korea came and went. Now I am old and only feel the emotions.
I need to acknowledge that you are correct about some of us "going native" in my vernacular...and that is likely what Bergdahl tried to do...but he lost track of the purpose. I went native, learn to speak the native language(s) and spent a lot of time with the native soldiers. But I never lost my focus on why I was there and utilized my familiarity to help my side, not run away from it. I admired USMC LT Gen Victor Krulak because he had the right idea...win with ideas not just bullets, but don't lay down your weapons.
That is where Bergdahl went of the reservation...he forgot why he was there and who he was to help.
My "enlistment" came via AFROTC at LSU in '66 and then into pilot tng, thence directly to DaNang in an F-4 outfit. I never did begrudge those who escaped the draft by becoming policemen, school-teachers, etc., or joining the Guard. I always felt there would/should be enough of us like me with the motivation and patriotism to take care for all the rest. But that was a different day with the draft still in effect, a different Army and a different society. Would there be enough of types like me and Aridog around if we ever had to expand to a 13 million-man force? Doubtful--and I don't see the political will to bring back the draft--EVER. The next "big war" will be "come-as-you-are" w.o. the time to re-arm and re-train. I truly fear for the future of our nation with each passing day as China re-arms to the teeth across-the-board, Russia is massively modernizing its nuclear forces and Obama guts the core of our armed forces, both conventional and nuclear. Dark clouds and darker forebodings..
Virgil...I only must add names like AllenS to those you cited as willing, plus the others here who are veterans and say nothing.
Otherwise, you are on the money.
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