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World War II Wedding as Witnessed and Recorded by Trees on June 30th, 1945, Cirencester, England - C. Riley, 2005
The Phantom Nine Returns
AND HITLER'S MIRACULOUS RESURRECTION
by Charles R. Riley
The Return Home
The street was quiet and not a street at first, but dirt or clay, as we knew dirt in Richmond. It was agreed upon that we call the dirt "Maple Avenue" out of deference to the maples, which located there, before the houses, the new beachhead of the returning soldiers. They sought peace by blending their abode with the stable abode of trees, the restful shade of trees, as cited in the last words of Jackson and Lee.
The foundations of houses mingled with roots in the firm clay of a former seabed, the seabed of a troubled sea that retreated to leave behind the most stable of soil. In this soil, the World War II veterans would build stable communities to balance the memories of destruction and slaughter.
The venerable soldiers returned and pieced together lives from remnants in stages. The jobs they had left behind were often no longer available. The wartime jobs were not needed. In many cases, there was no home to return to. If they were lucky, they lived with family or friends until they could manage on their own.
It was not know exactly when Russell would return. He could have returned earlier, but he refused to fly. In fact, he would not fly ever again, not because he couldn't, but because good sense dictated he should not tempt fate. He survived five crash landings, one with an excellent view of the Eiffel Tower, which he enjoyed through the flames of his burning C-47 transport.
Russell had the good sense to take a transport ship from England to New York City. He would not take the chance of another crash landing, if he could avoid it. Adroitly avoiding a crash landing, he was caught off the port of New York City for a week in a ferocious and tenacious storm that threatened to capsize the ship packed with thousands of returning soldiers stacked high in bunks throughout the deep holds of the ship. As a safety precaution, guards were posted at all hatches with machine guns to persuade seasick soldiers with claustrophobic tendencies from rushing onto the deck and causing the ship to list too far to one side. The ship tossed continuously from side to side so that vertical rolled into horizontal and back again. If one was not strapped down, one could fall from port to starboard and back again. When the ship was tossed so that the great propeller of the ship projected into the open air between the trough of the giant waves, the ship vibrated and rattled as if it would break apart. The violent vibrations contributed in their own unique manner to the addled brains of war weary soldiers. The helpless soldiers were tossed about as if they were the mixings for a giant salad repetitiously attacked with a jackhammer.
Russell recovered from his good sense in New York with Eunice, his new bride at the enchanting Gramercy Park Hotel. These were happy moments of respite, in which they started the process of blending and knowing, misunderstanding and understanding, that would weave together a new life in the unending communion of opposites to regenerate life, which was especially paramount after so much had been lost.
From New York, Russell and Eunice rode the train to Richmond and then a cab to surprise his parents, who lived in a fine house on Sycamore Street. Russell signaled his return to his parents' home with a Fats Waller tune he once played on the piano before he left for the war. Behind the lyrics, the sense of the song said what Russell and his family felt, "We are alive and we are here with you to enjoy the richness of our relations." It was a time when the tender sense at the heart of life was still understood. There was still time to stand outside the relentless pace of time. The measure of time wasn't crowded with the over-stimulation of deafening noise and blinding images. The tender piano notes echoed and searched, drawing the family together with the laughter they once knew and knew again and celebrated over cocktails in the embracing shade of a giant Sycamore.
The shade of the Sycamore gently caressed the reunited family and blessed them in the deep truth of all accepting silence, a gift of unbeguiled truth, which they filled with practiced ease to capacity. It wasn't to be long before the transition from Sycamore Street to Maple Avenue. If measured in tree time, a time that measured itself against the accumulated experiences of hundreds of years, it was less than the blink of an eye or the drop of a leaf. For now, the house on Sycamore would ease Russell and Eunice back to tranquility and balance from the endless toil of shoring up human frailty. "Are we human?" was asked rhetorically again and again, or "Can you withstand destruction by a means that has been perfected to this point or that, the Tiger Tank or the Panzerfaust or the 74 mm cannon or the 90 mm?" Sometimes, it was a declaration that affirmed, "See what we can do to you! You are frail and cannot possibly survive if you try to withstand us!" The message was sent in streams of blood, the soldiers' selfless sacrifice. Russell's officiating priest was Commanding General Leonard. The holy offering on the altar of war was the 9th Armored Division, which was to take the brunt of the Ardennes offensive; aide in the defense of Bastogne; and spearhead the drive over the Remagen Bridge and through Germany to the last battle in Czechoslovakia.
It was tenable and hopeful that the past was never to touch the present in the laughter and talk of weather, the heat, the gin and tonics, and the martinis. The present was the cloak of invisibility that covered the suffocating depths of the recent past. If the past did touch, it was incidental in appearance. The past appeared as anecdotal jokes of crash landings, jeeps demolished by artillery moments after leaping to safety, and the time Russell could not be awakened for his own wedding. In desperation, the best man kicked in the door to his room and dragged him out. There was no escaping his fate.
"Honestly, I was not afraid to come out. I was not a gold-brick in the war and I was not about to be one in marriage."
"When Becky and I made a holy pilgrimage to St. Peter's in Cirencester, England, I thoroughly checked the church records. For the life of me, I couldn’t find a record of the supposed marriage," quipped Uncle Ken, who married Becky, Russell's sister.
Uncle Ken, as he was affectionately known, was not an uncle in the war or even known to the Riley family. Nevertheless, he was instrumental in saving the life of Riley, who was in charge of an aide station during the siege of Bastogne. Ken flew his P-54 in support of the cargo planes that supplied surrounded Bastogne with much needed men and materials at the last moment before immanent defeat. Dr. Riley was thus saved from capture or worse by a man who was to become a brother.
Not long before the end of the war, Ken crash-landed his P-54 in Luxembourg and was taken prisoner. He was easily spotted as an American riding a European bicycle in the American style, feet parallel on the pedals, attempting to brake with a backward push of pedals when the brakes in Europe were on the handlebars.
Russell’s outfit, Combat Command B of the 92nd Armored Infantry Battalion, returned Ken's favor by liberating a town in which Ken was held prisoner in a boxcar in Germany, not many days after Bastogne.
"Now you know," Russell played along in deadpan reference to the missing marriage records that Ken referred to.
Unknown to family and friends, Russell was a poet who practiced his art in its pure form. This aberrant behavior could be attributed to his late nights with Gerard Manley Hopkins or David Jones. Whatever the cause, an alternate world existed in the depths of his soul. To what purpose this world is developed and explored, it cannot be assessed or explained in ordinary terms. At best, the ephemeral world can be described or inferred by one similarly afflicted. Such a narrator can recognize by telltale signs the existence of an inscape or alternate world within another. This recognition of a common soul can lead to a continuity or connection of the two worlds.
Although inscape has been fully recognized and developed in poetry, it has not been so thoroughly developed in narrative. As the characters of this story dwell as thoroughly in the inscape as the landscape, an attempt will be made to develop this aspect of the characters. Uncle Ken might not have recognized it, but to the trained inner eye, one would readily see that his jest regarding the curious absence of an outward visible marriage contract, was actually a key to the alternate world of inscape.
Russell opens the ornate door of inscape - It was possible then that the children will not to be recognized as legitimate by documentation. I trust the trees recorded the wedding in growth rings like a phonograph record. Future archeologists with arborist training, advanced in deciphering the memory of trees, will resurrect the legitimacy of vows and the correspondence of nature and natural law with devices similar to ancient phonograph players.
I am sinking into or stinking in the gin and the skin of laughter stretched as notes in a hammock or moon ray net score of captured harmony through the twilight. It smoothes and cloaks the counting and recounting of countless dead in The Bulge, Bastogne, Remagen. Accurate records were kept for the dead, but the living wounded carried less weight. There was scarce time to record the removal of a limb or the administration of morphine, much less a wedding. General Leonard scarcely had time or the inclination to record a battle. He was not one to seek glory at the expense of lives. So goes the life of an authentic hero.
The past is there, peering at us from the cool drink and laughter. It pours out as the "unnamed" in the sweat from the heat. It is accepted as the sweat is accepted on shirts and blouses that cling and merge with and dissolve into the humid humanity of a hot July evening. Perhaps, if the sweat is not named and is accepted as the primordial contact in the communal sea, it will melt and meld us into the quiescence of pre-existence, before the Word and World Made Flesh. The vibrations of atoms and molecules, the variations of existence will combine in the perfect state of a sea of serenity before the war, before disease, but after the passage through fire to here, now.
The fathomless past was accepted in a faith tested by Depression and War. It was accepted as no ascetic could. Any self-inflicted penitential flagellation or fasting could not have compared, or may have compared, as something akin to self-flattery.
Perhaps the past was present in the cool drink and the sweat pouring forth unchecked, and perhaps it was not accepted, but it did pull, extenuate, and disjoint the present with the recurrence of Camp Riley, Kansas.
"Where are you going, Russell Riley," asked Uncle Ken with a wide grin, the queue to the practiced comic routine.
"Riley," Russell on queue from the backstage of effervescence.
"No, I’m not asking who is going, but where are you going?"
"Who’s on First?" asked Russ in imitation and remembrance of a famous Abbot and Costello comedy routine of two baseball commentators. One commentator attempts to explain the inexplicable, "’Who is on First," where "Who" is the name of a player, who is on first base. The play on words as something inadequate creates an endless loop of confusion and human misunderstanding that is easily recognized and appreciated. Thus was understood the common bond of humanity by this generation. Humanity was measured and appreciated in mistakes and their acceptance in serendipitous results. Without mistakes, one would not be living, results not worth appreciation. Mistakes were dutifully accepted and worked with in good humor for the alternative was death or at least unpleasantness on top of unpleasantness. To be correct without question was laughable and appreciated in "The Great Dictator" by Chaplain and similar comedies by The Three Stooges and The Marx Brothers.
Russell returns to the inscape - It was Easter Sunday, 1943. Camp Riley was shut off from the outside world. Like heaven or hell, it did not exist to the world we knew. In the damp, cold, hellish weather, the soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder for two never-ending hours. In the blink of an eye, a cavalcade of cars paraded by. It was all over in an instant but we would never forget the collective feeling of pride we felt in that moment. In a passing limousine, FDR did all a president could do, which was to encourage and lead, to facilitate and most of all not to get in the way. He led us faithfully with his dignity in his weakness against a superman, who would exterminate weakness in his effort to sterilize the earth for the ideal society of the strongest and the most intelligent. Weakness then was to win our battle of the Ardennes. As an individual overcame paralysis, a nation overcame the paralysis of isolation, acquiescence, and fear. It was the weakness of command that individual units overcame to stand audaciously in the way of a much larger force of seasoned troops with greater firepower and earn our Division the distinctive title of "The Phantom Nine." "Didn't they know a blitzkrieg was going on? Who were these audacious men to stand in the way of a blitzkrieg?" The 9th Armored Infantry Division took the worst Hitler and his architect of terror, Speer, could offer. Units on their own initiative fought to the last man to delay long enough to retrench and reinforce and finally to repel.
What made these men do what they did? It didn't start with the blitzkrieg. It had something to do with the personal freedom we shared responsibly and molded to a cause. German soldiers on the other hand could not act without orders. When they received orders, they were specific. The American soldier knew the overall plan and could pick up the job of another soldier. That was one of the reasons for the success at Normandy. The German generals weren't available to give commands.
How did we learn to blend our personal freedom to meet a common goal? It wasn't easy and it wasn’t until June ’43 that we became a cohesive force, joining and caring for our personal weaknesses. We were transferred to Camp Ibis, the abyss, in California. In the desert heat, we, the listless, acquired toughness and cohesiveness. Before this, we were strangers who did not know one another or trust one another, and no amount of iron-fisted command could have held the basic units of the Ninth Division together, nor coerced the soldiers to reach a common goal.
Those were the simple days of heat exhaustion, abrasions, blisters, and sores. Our entertainment for the most part consisted of creative rumors of soldiers unwittingly crushed by the treads of tanks on maneuver as infantry slept in the desert sand. My aide unit never found corroborative evidence, nor did we operate with inflating devices on pancake-shaped soldiers with limb-like protrusions. Such advanced medical procedures were only in the developmental stages, but they would make our soldiers invincible, using the simple but ingenious tire patch and air pump to resurrect soldiers almost as fast as they were brought down.
Simple things, like the case of manna beer from heaven, were treasured by the trained. A case of beer miraculously appeared in the desert along a highway and it was no mirage. Then there was the ice cream truck that somehow was mistaken for an enemy vehicle. It strayed unsuspectingly into maneuvers and was captured, commandeered, and liberated. This too held the units together. St. Michael, the Archangel, worked in strange ways to prepare us for battle and life eternal.
The 52nd Armored Infantry Battalion had its own paper, the "Ric-O-Shay". The paper was a cohesive force that gave us a sense of community and a voice. The editor described our strange preparation not only for war, but also for life and life eternal. The boundary between life and death became as frail as a cobweb that could easily be swept aside in the not too distant future, which had been and must be. In an epiphany, the editor once shared the formation of our character and goals:
"Kipling once wrote that you can best tell a man’s character by his actions and reactions in the barracks and on the field of battle.
"Now after our many months in the army we can think back to our "rookie" days when all the world was foggy and full of green cheese and realize how far we have gone in becoming qualified soldiers.
"Also an awareness has come to us of army life doing things to us,--giving us different values and appreciations—heightening our pleasure and contentments in simple things…bath, leisure, a newspaper, good conversation, quiet. Too, we have gained the greatest of all pleasures out of our new and lasting friendships.
"All of us are the finer men for these experiences,--and the time we have spent around the camp fires has been rewarding…
"On a happy day in the not too far future when victory is ours and the war is history we shall have come to a deeper insight into the richness of our everyday lives…of such things as people, weather, laughter, and ourselves. We have found pride and wisdom in the army.
"The army has given us its stamp and we may go into any walk of life as men."
The editor, Private Louis D. Frihling, was a college English teacher, who wrote a book about castles on the Rhine. He was killed in action east of Bastogne before ever seeing the Rhine.
I had many such accurate memories. An accurate memory served me well. I believe I owe this in part to my Irish heritage. It had something to do with all the poetry the Irish kept in their heads, because British law in its infinite wisdom proscribed writing and reading. The Irish couldn't forget, or their rich culture would be lost. An earlier precedence to the genius of memory was ancient epic poetry of pre-history preserved in the collective memory of the Irish people. Prehistoric deeds of other European nations, excluding ancient Greece, were mysteriously buried and lost in mute monolithic stones. The Irish had an historically developed capacity for remembering and embellishment in the art of words.
At Notre Dame, I developed a photographic memory, standing all night to study a book propped on my dresser. My chemistry professor thought I was cheating, when I answered verbatim from the book I pictured open to the page of the referenced question. The honorable professor had suspicions that I was surreptitiously reading from notes cleverly hidden up my sleeve or on my chair. He asked me to stand beside my desk as he searched round and round, under and above to find the craftily hidden notes. In the obtuse reaches of a mental library, he could never find them as he did not have a key to the inscape. The more he looked the more frustrated and furious he became. I was afraid he would strike me with his clenched fists. My fear may have been mistaken for a telltale look of guilt.
He was right to be furious. I understood. If schools turned out cheaters, society would be cheated and our souls would be cheated. We would not be who we were pretending to be. I think this was another reason we made good soldiers. There was no thin line between good and bad. Through depression and war, we understood right and wrong, brotherhood, and civic duty.
For dictators like Stalin and Hitler, cheating was an expected tool. Trust was not acceptable; it was even laughable. There was no room for the possibility of error that was inherent in trust. Trust meant a generous acceptance of a less than ideal reliability. It took ruthlessness to lead a people towards an ideal state. Mistakes are what were unforgivable. To even think something out of line with the ideal was corrected with execution (no person, no problem). Hang them on meat hooks for good example, as Hitler did to his own people in public displays as if the destruction of life was his artwork of the ultimate social engineer. Hitler was a frustrated artist. This is a good argument for supporting artists, so they don't go into politics.
To Hitler, we were naïve and lacking direction. He didn’t think we would last through a prolonged war with many casualties. We were too selfish, too individualistic.
We suffered many casualties when Who was in the Ardennes? "Who is not in the Ardennes. Who is not on first base. It is not logical," confirmed The Supreme Command Headquarters and the Intelligent Intelligence of S.O.B.'s, Save Our Butts. "Who is overrunning the bases." "What do you mean Who is overrunning the bases? They ran through here twice in two previous offensives. But I tell you, you are perfectly safe and snug. It doesn't make sense. Have fun, while Monty prepares another garden party and drops our paratroopers in the middle of it to serve as sandwiches."
Such a bombardment by Who was never seen. So many tanks had Who and big ones too, we couldn't believe they were not there. Our sharp shooters shot them as they attempted to bridge the water. They bled like Who, but then we knew they couldn't be who. Many disbeliveers were taken prisoner by Who. The word spread that prisoners were summarily executed by SS Who. This only stiffened resistance. Units held out to the last man against heavily armed Who.
In our retreat on foot to regroup in Bastogne, my aide station had to cross an open field. We were caught in machine gun fire and an artillery barrage. I covered my head with an old New England Journal of medicine, like one would do if caught in the rain. "Hey, doc, what are you trying to do? That magazine won't stop bullets," they shouted. "I know, but it sure makes me feel better." Despite the shrapnel and bullets raining down all around us, we laughed convulsively.
My jeep was shot out from under me. We hit the dirt just as the shell burst. It destroyed the jeep and most of my collection of New England Journals of Medicine. With all the carnage and destruction around me, all I could think about was the senseless loss of New England Journals to civilization, to mankind. I retrieved a few that were still intact and padded my clothing with them. The temperature was hovering below zero and any extra insulation helped. The magazines made be feel connected in more than one way to learning and knowledge for the preservation of life. Perhaps if someone saw a medical journal on my head, they wouldn't shoot it off.
The Fifth Panzer Army, and the Sixth and Seventh Armies thought they had stamped us out here and there again, but here and there we turned up to plague and delay and finally stop and turn, not knowing we would be there in the first place. Thus we were known to the Germans as the infamous "Phantom Nine."
Uncle Ken held a rose between his teeth and danced the Samba. Eunice and Becky laughed. Here was a man who flew relief missions to surrounded Bastogne when troops were down to their last rounds. He perhaps had ulterior motives in saving us to win Becky’s admiration, but this is not possible as Becky didn’t know him, but somehow the cosmos knew our destinies were intertwined, somehow the heart is one.
Shot down in Luxembourg; he survived a crash landing. He was caught trying to escape. We freed him not long afterward in our spearhead through Germany. One good turn deserves another.
For Ken, the same light and easy attitude met all obstacles and survived all dilemmas. He had learned to appreciate the good with the bad. Thus, when wounded and facing impending death in a crash landing, his response was unperturbed. "Oh, my goodness," was the graceful acceptance. He would live and die as peacefully and gracefully as he had always determined himself to be.
"Did I ever tell you about the time I single handedly prevented the only terrorist destruction of an American building and symbol of free enterprise?" baited Uncle Ken in his mellow Southern drawl. It wasn’t quite a drawl in Virginia as a spacious and relaxed song.
"I think you did about one-hundred times," joked Russell.
"Well, let me tell you again," said Uncle Ken with an undaunted smile.
"I was flying a P-58 back from Europe in thick cloud cover. I knew New York City must be close by when a pocket in the clouds suddenly opened up revealing a massive building. It was so close I could see the people inside their offices spilling coffee and diving for cover. I pulled back so hard on the controls I bent them. I managed to kiss the antenna on top of the building. It was only afterwards that I realized it was the Empire State Building that I had saved from heinous destruction by a most pernicious use of cloud cover and unsuspecting agent.
"I circled around in disbelief as an appreciative crowd on the observation deck cheered my daring aerial display."
Eunice had never heard so much talk and laughter in her life. Of course, nothing seemed normal since she left the quiet Minnesota farm to study physical therapy at the Mayo Clinic and subsequently joined the war effort in her selfless service to the cause.
Eunice was not a big talker, but she listened with a will, a concentration that could unnerve a Commanding General. The speaker always knew they were under intense scrutiny with a mental sword that could cut through gibberish like the heads of the chickens she used to sever dutifully, unflinchingly, and resignedly. As with the chickens, she showed no sign of malice or contempt, no sense of superiority, but an acceptance of the process of life, in which she was the natural expert.
In her ceaseless efforts during the war to restore vitality and transcendence to wounded soldiers, she learned to accept her role of dispenser of torture for a higher purpose. With the same innate sense of acceptance and connection with whatever it was she did, she was able to motivate and move hopelessly mangled creatures back to humanity and beyond their pain. With a simple word or look that emanated from deep within her soul to connect with another, she gave cripples what they needed to discard their crutches and see threads of hope where there had been none. Like phantoms, our men returned to fight another day for the common good.
It was the same acceptance of the process of life and innate faith in the design of nature that she knew she accepted a man to follow but to follow as she chose. It was her intention to have a family to fill her life with deep bonds that could match the depths of her soul and somehow she knew these bonds would lead to an even greater truth than she had known as herself alone or herself as a part of the war effort.
"Tell us how you met Russ," inquired Becky, Russell’s sister.
"Well, there’s not much to tell," replied Eunice in her Midwestern, neutral accent.
"We met on the train to New Orleans. Russell finished his internship in the hospital there."
Somehow this did seem to cover the subject succinctly. It gave assurance that it was as it should have been and that is all that mattered. No one was left waiting in suspense. The simple way she said it with complete confidence left the listener with an appreciation of the simplicity and coherence of life. Now they had plenty of time and space to spare.
Eunice did discuss in great detail the making of dinner and desert, which she would memorize for future reference. She was learning from the mother-in-law about the caring of her child, Russ, as Eunice knew the child transferred to her care. After all, A well-maintained husband was like a well-maintained tractor. The class over, Eunice stood to do what was always needed. It was not about her, but about the team, the family, two families joined together, as it had been with her duties in the army, which made her much more than herself.
"Here, I’ll clean that up," she said resignedly, without reluctance or reservation.
"Oh, you don’t have to do that," said Agnes, her mother-in-law.
"Oh, I don’t mind," and before anyone could protest, she was taking care of the disorder, taking charge, organizing and cleaning as if she had been doing this all along as long as they remembered even as if time didn’t exist in this respect. It was as if the wind blew and it was not questioned for being the wind. The inside joke was that Eunice was very methodical having been raised a Methodist.
A great reverence and respect for Eunice was immediately aroused in all who knew her. It was more than just the way she accepted and fulfilled needs without regret or resentment or reluctance, but that her presence gave them a calm acceptance of their existence under any circumstances and a space to live in kind graciousness, shouldering responsibility as a gift. It was also tacitly recognized that it was necessary for Eunice to live deep within herself, not just for herself but for all of their sakes. It was through her deep and silent connection with life that truth was known and lies and subterfuge recognized. She emanated a sense of unshakeable confidence and courage, a calm center in the storm of life.
Eunice - The words are many, a flood, a torrential downpour. With the chores on the farm, a day could pass without a word until dinner at sunset when the Bible and "The Living Word" were read and grace was said. Farm matters were not so much discussed as noted with a word or two. Everyone saw what needed to be done from day to day. Water had to be pumped by hand, winter or summer, blizzard or rain. In the snow, which was measured more often in feet than inches, a path had to be kept open to the out-house and barn. Traps had to be set for fur and food. Eggs were gathered. Cows milked. Cats, dog, horses, cows, chickens, and pigs fed. There was plowing and harrowing, at first with horses, until the fateful day they all died in an epidemic. When the horses died, we bought the first tractor. Even this was done when it was needed. There wasn’t much to discuss.
When the animal traps were stolen, it wasn’t necessary to hire a detective or lawyer or even call for police. Eunice’s father, Henry Sampson, headed for the shack in which some drunkards and thieves squated. He did not knock, but walked in unannounced. Guns were trained on him while he rifled through boxes and closets. It wasn’t necessary to explain his presence. It wasn’t necessary to ask why he was there. Shooting someone over animal traps was not necessary, and it was right for Henry to be drawn to the traps to restore balance as he had always done in his stewardship of the land, to restore balance in the rotation of the crops, in living in balance with the seasons, in his habit of eating just enough and no more. The overpowering necessity of balance emanated from his weathered face and knurled hands. This was someone, some power that they had no right, no ability to kill. Here was justice and they accepted it and could not kill it. Here was not only Henry, but a family. They would not be able to kill him without having to kill all of them and then where could it stop? Even thieves at that quieter time saw the connection in things.
Somehow, the connections were lost as Columbus, the neighborhood itinerant worker, signaled the loss with his loss of life over a pack of cigarettes. It was pushed back for awhile with the war, but somehow we were tainted with it and it would roll back again in a new form like a recurring virus taking a new phantasmagoric shape through a retched process of transmogrification.
Russell - The poison gas attack came from the enemy within. The Treaty of Versailles and the Geneva Convention disallowed it.
Jones may recognize his internal gas attack in his poetry.
We followed the old World War One supply route from Paris to Verdun to the very spot TGI was in WWI!
Paris was a delightful oasis after the ruins, wreckage, and carnage of the countryside.
The network of agents left behind by the Germans reported our movements, but once past St. Quentin the agents lost track of us, or was it the hot asphalt of Patterson Avenue that halted the agents. The Fifth Panzer Army did not learn to what part of the front we would be positioned or to what army attached. Thus, began the reputation of the Phantom Nine.
Bivouac was set four miles east of Verdun. Camped by the crosses of 900,000 who sacrificed all in a previous war. We contemplated the combat zone we would be in on the next day.
I set up my Aide Station for Combat Command A in Waldbillig, our headquarters on the front in the Ardennes, before the attack of the Who. We were stretched thin in a front where nothing was supposed to happen, just a few skirmishes here and there. The generals with the aide of Intelligence concluded that it would be illogical for Germany to make a major thrust through the Ardennes and that there would be a war of attrition and defense as dictated by good old military doctrine. Of course Hitler was desperate and he didn’t follow the sensible plans of our Intelligence and the Generals.
I took my job seriously, and concerns of mine were frost bite, trench foot, contaminated food, proper latrines, and other matters that could cripple the army if not attended to. However, certain officers with cozy, warm, and dry feet propped up by pot bellied stoves, weren’t concerned with such trivial matters as trench foot. The feet of the soldiers in the trenches were soaked during the day and frozen at night. Many of them were disabled as a result. In disgust for the lack of concern on the part of certain officers, I transferred to Combat Command B even though it meant a reduction in rank from captain to lieutenant.
On the night of December 15th, 1944, I was working in the aide station for CCB. It might have been prophetic that this was the night that Glen Miller, the celebrated big band leader, disappeared over the English Channel.
I cared for soldiers wounded in skirmishes. They reported unusually large concentrations of troops and armor. We passed this on, but it was ignored. On December 16th, just before dawn, we observed such a concentration of artillery fire that we had never seen before, and then the onslaught began. Glen Miller would have to orchestrate a civilized response from heaven.
Unfortunately, our aide station Captain was taken prisoner in the first wave of attacks. I was once again a Captain and to remain the Captain in charge of the CCB Aide Station for the duration of the war. I removed every imaginable piece of hardware in every imaginable shape and form from soldiers. I could have started a hardware store with the stockpile of materials that emerged. I remember blood soaked tents and clothes, endless hours, inventing procedures on the fly to save lives. Here I was in a war to save lives, where the rule was to take lives.
Some doctors refused to help the German Soldiers, but I took the Hippocratic oath to preserve life and I would honor that oath. The Germans were in the same mess we were in. We were all trying to survive the blunders of our ingenious stupidity. God gave me the best part of war, and I was grateful. May it rest in peace, but not forgotten. May we never again wait and see; capitulate and excuse.
After we stopped the Ardennes advance in Bastongne and crossed over the Remagen Bridge into Germany, we once liberated a castle. In it, we discovered doctors who organized death; administered death to the handicapped and elderly.
Russell many years later, laid in bed at home dying of cancer, he wondered at the results of such a desperate war - Did they win in the end? They are here again. They are in us like a virus. They resurface again and again with the same arrogance, the same righteousness. I cared for Germans and African Americans as I did Irish and Italian and Anglo. The pain and frailty is the same, it calls for mending, not destruction, peaceful and natural healing. How could anyone be trusted with the authority to take life as was done in the German castle to prepare way for a perfect race? How do we submit to such atrocities? Even the bishop tried to convince me that it was okay to approve the sterilization of the retarded at St. Mary’s, the hospital I helped to create and develop with my sweat to stand as a beacon of unmitigated healing, constructive surgery, not destructive. We could lose government support, it was explained. Thus tax money is used to control and corrupt as it was before the American Revolution. England used the tea tax to enforce its authority and a lopsided mercantilism, which favored England and aristocrats.
Shortly after the war, I tried to convince the Virginia branch of the AMA to allow African American doctors to join them. I was derided. The enemy was alive and well within us.
How surprising it was many years later when the enemy mutated in us again and the virus grew stronger yet. Whining, agitation, and political blackmail for the betterment of special interests replaced representative government for the betterment of the country. My son is not the right sex or sexual orientation or color for government or university positions. Legalized discrimination is the most odious, even if so called Affirmative Action makes it smell sweet. The tyranny of political correctness has perfected control of language to a political end, and so life is mechanized. The virus of the ideal in human order takes new phantasmagoric forms. Discrimination for a good end is all the more insidious as legal discrimination. Thus democracy ends with favors bought in free market politics, the corrupt mercantilism of the day. King George the III thought the ends justified the means as well. He replaced a corrupt Parliament with a government that was just as parsimonious having accepted the bribes of the king. He meant well, just as special interests do today, and Hitler's Social Democrats did the same.
Eunice held Russell's hands and caressed them. Tears filled her tired eyes. Her voice broke with emotion as she said her last words to Russell, "I love you. You fought the good fight. Your family is all here now. They are standing beside you. They want you to know they love you. You did all you could do. It's not up to you anymore. We will miss you so much, but it is time for you to go and for us to let you go."
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