Veteran Prepares to March for Peace

Last November, a friend told me about PRO-Peace, a nine-month march from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., to promote nuclear disarmament.

I wanted to participate, but wondered whether it was just the foolish dream of an old man of 74. My wife of 45 years lies in a grave in a veterans’ cemetery. In the past two years, I have worked hard to create a new life for myself through volunteer work for my church and community. Could I return to that life after a march across America?

Would my doctor approve of a walk across the country? Who would take care of my house for nine months? How could I keep in touch with my four grown children, my grandchildren, and my surviving sisters? Would it be worth the effort?

Month of Reflection

After a month of reflection, I decided to go ahead and try to join the march. My reasons date back more than 40 years. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, I was employed by the City of New York as an English teacher. At the time, I carefully examined the facts and reluctantly reached the conclusion that World War II was a just war; I had the right and the duty to defend my family, my home and my country.

When I was drafted by the Army in 1944 at the age of 32, I left behind a wife, a 3-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter. I answered the call of the draft board like any other American citizen, and I did what the Army ordered me to do. I did not volunteer to serve overseas, I did not volunteer for combat duty and I certainly did not volunteer for infantry action. I have great respect for those who did volunteer, but I volunteered for nothing.

People who have never seen combat may nod their heads in sympathy and say, “I know what a terrible price you paid.” No you don’t. They may say, “I would have been delighted to serve our country if I had been called.” I was called and I was not delighted.

In January, 1945, I arrived in Luxembourg with a group of replacements for men who had been wounded or killed fighting in the Battle of the Bulge with Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army. I was assigned to a platoon of combat veterans. Some were veterans of days and some of weeks. One was a veteran of months--the only soldier who remained from a platoon of about 30 men that had landed in France six months before.

We were on our way to Germany to start an offensive that would end the war or our lives or both. Military strategists called us “expendables.” They expected that most of our group would be killed or maimed in battle. They were training other troops to take our places when that happened.

Small Basement Room

A few weeks later, I found myself with five other men in a small basement room in what had once been a middle-class home in Fraulautern, Germany. The attached house next door was empty. The next house after that was occupied by German soldiers. They were so close that I learned to recognize the difference between the sour smell of a German soldier and the sour smell of an American soldier.

According to a history of the 104th Regiment written after the war, this time in Fraulautern “was a beautiful setup. We ate at a regular table with nice china and silverware and when we finished eating we didn’t bother to wash the dishes--we just threw them out of the window.” I don’t remember it that way.

The two-story brick houses in our neighborhood had probably been neat and clean and orderly when their German owners had left them. By the time we arrived, the windows and doors had been blown off and everything of value was destroyed or missing. There was no electricity and no running water. We urinated out the back door until a German machine gunner discouraged this practice. From then on, we had to sneak out of the house toward American lines to find a place to relieve ourselves. We lived like stray dogs, and tried not to die like them.

Although it was winter, there was no heat or hot food during daylight hours. After darkness came, to hide the chimney smoke, we chopped up furniture to put in a wood-burning space heater.

During the day, one man stood guard in the shadows by the back door while the rest of us huddled in blankets in a cellar filled with dirty mattresses. We read and wrote letters and ate and talked and joked. By night, an extra man guarded the cellar door near the spot where our lieutenant had been wounded by machine-gun fire a few days before. Our orders were to shoot first and ask questions later.

Noise or Movement

At night there was always the sensation that something terrible would happen. Any noise or movement could draw fire from enemy mortars, machine guns or small arms.

I remember standing on guard in the hallway at night, bayonet fixed, rifle ready. Pulling back to avoid shrapnel whenever a shell hit nearby. Wondering what would happen if German soldiers came racing through the door while my friends slept below. Praying for loved ones at home, one by one, trying to pass the hours until dawn.

During the weeks I lived in that cellar I was promoted to private first class. I also earned the right to wear the blue Combat Infantry Badge. Why all these honors? Because I lived. I had not yet fired even one shot at an enemy soldier (nor would I as I was soon transferred to a medical corps). But in some mysterious way I had protected my country and my family by living in that hole. I was an American hero. There were 12 million American heroes in World War II.

Now, in the 1980s, we are on the road to war again. But this time several nations possess a weapon that is capable of destroying all life.

Over the last four decades, I tried to raise my voice to protest that war was irrational, cruel, immoral and un-Christian. I spoke but no one listened. I wrote but no one published. And now I am planning to participate in a march across the country. If the march fails, the only thing I will have wasted is my time. I must try to raise one feeble voice to prevent another war. The voice may not be heard, but it is sinful not to raise it.