My Honor Flight

by McCurrigan, Dan

  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!

  Chapter 4 - D-Day

  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 s
omeone 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 Tay
lor’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.

  We all gathered around him. I turned and threw up. I seemed to do that quite a bit during the war. But I wasn’t the only one. Some of the guys cried. O’Halloran was pretty tight with Tom Duncan. Duncan dropped to his knees and put his hands on O’Halloran’s chest. He didn’t say anything as his tears dropped onto O’Halloran. He opened O’Halloran’s coat, and pulled out the leather square that was in an inside pocket.