Youthphoria

The river of the Rhine flowed as blood of a dying soldier seeps from a missing limb. That's the image pressed in my mind. This was supposed to be it-the final push towards the defeat of the Reich. It proved to be just the beginning of a new war that raged within myself; a battle that ate away at every living cell in my body, a parasitic stigma that would remain. According to the Romans, the Rhine served as a boundary. Past it lay the uncivilized world, the edge of reason, the beginning of savagery. I could now see why this was so. Back then I was Timothy Branham, a private soldier of the 71st infantry. That day, Timothy Branham died. Not physically. No...my body stayed in one piece, essentially unscathed. My mind, however, was no different from the limbs that had flown through the air and lay on the ground, like pebbles of hail after a good winter storm. Eight months earlier, while seeing a movie with my then girlfriend Catherine, I had been struck by an ad for Uncle Sam's military. I had been alive back then; oblivious to the war, a fire that raged in a distant forest, a ship that traveled on a distant sea, far enough that I neither knew nor cared about what happened. The crude black-and-white film had romanced me with images of victory, of glory, and of pride. Lacking all three of these, I was bewitched, oblivious to the layers upon layers of propaganda, spread out like the blankets on the beach on a hot August day. I was sold. I had pitched the idea to my mother, who was a bit resistant to the idea. My father, however, was supportive. "C'mon honey," he expelled, with the force of a soapbox preacher, "it'll help the boy build character. Let 'em fight the Hun the way I fought 'em back in the first, give him experience and stories for a lifetime." She gave in. I had visited the recruiting office ready for this glory, ready for the opportunities of war. I was ignorant. There were no such opportunities. From the moment I signed the enlistment forms in that busy New York City office, I was a member of the American military. I was immediately prepared, given a rifle and a uniform, and sent on a ship across the Atlantic to Europe. By this time, Germany was on its last leg. I had assumed I would not see battle, an idea that caused me great distress. I had also assumed the supply of soldiers was innumerable, every male wanting to bring glory to his sleepy countryside town or add to the legacy of his city. Clearly, I was mistaken, much in the way children believe the moon is made of cheese. Following the humdrum voyage to France-of which there was nothing of noteworthy significance--I was placed on a train bound for France, figuring I'd be nothing more than a reserve soldier, much to my chagrin. I spent that trip composing many letters to various friends, and to Catherine. I thought about her often, and the sheer amount of letters addressed to her proved it. To this day, I don't know if they survive. I didn't. The trip was brief and speedy. Towns with names I couldn't pronounce flew by in a blur. I had been socked in the eyes by Europe, seeing more in this trip than I had ever seen in my life. My mouth had been socked too, as I was fed foods from all over the continent, my stomach busting at the seams after a good meal. For the most part, however, I was just one of the boys, writing letters, sleeping, eating, looking at our adult magazines, passed around as a Bible amongst mass. I guess it helped to keep us sane.

Soon enough, we were through France, a land in near-ruin at that point. Our good ol' friends, our fellow countrymen had swept in just in time, pushing the Germans back to their boundaries on the Rhine. It was just in time. Any longer and Britain herself could have been over-run, could have been ravaged and enjoyed by the German state. Thankfully it was not to be, and the Germans withdrew to their borders, as a small child runs to his mother after receiving an injury. My chagrin was soon replaced by excitement, exultation, and eagerness. The 71st infantry were given word we would be taking part in an operation that would cross the Rhine into the Ardennes. We had celebrated. We hollered, high-fived, performed fist pumps, all in anticipation of our chance at seizing glory. This was it. It was time to become a hero. * The morning of our involvement, we were ready to go. We had our weapons and boots polished, our clothes pressed, our helmets perfectly aligned, our grenades hanging like badges. Our canteens hung from our waist, sometimes clanging against the ammunition in the pockets of our fatigues. I remember a rhythm it would make. It was a strange rhythm, and as we moved to the trucks, I figured it out. At first it was a "clang, no clang, clang, no clang" rhythm, a simple one. But as John shifted it more to the left, it only clanged on 1 and 4, thus "clang, no clang, no clang, clang". He did this repeatedly, hoping to find a place where it would not make the noise. My delight that way, where I rid myself of my nervous anticipation, was in figuring out those rhythms. That would be the last I'd see of John. As we arrived at the Rhine, the battle was already underway. Corpses lay like garbage in the streets, soldiers passing by without the merest glance. These men had failed at glory. Psh... We were the true heroes and we'd prove it. John was one of the first in our infantry down. It was a sniper's bullet. He stopped to whisper to me, and the bullet caught him in the back of his head. He was small guy, so as he turned, the helmet shifted, and at that point the sniper took his shot, and luckily for me, the bullet did not travel through. John wasn't lucky in any case. The shot instantly killed him, sending a spatter of his blood across my uniform. I was never able to get that stain out, a dark reminder. It was spotted, in marked contrast to my memory. He had been cut down, thundering to the ground as a bomb dropped by the B-42's. The smile on my face hung there for a moment, shock that he was now gone in the midst of telling me the joke of the priest and the rabbi. I would hear no more of his jokes, no more of his hearty laughs. That was that. In that instant, war became very real. We instantly dropped into the grass, our smiles quickly replaced by incredulous looks of fear. Our youthful allusions were gone. We were now men, shoved out into the cold of the real world, the frost of it biting at our ears and noses. At the same time, we were still children, maintaining the fear we had possessed as something creaked in the night. In the ensuing hours, I saw much. I watch limbs and fluids languish through the air, I saw the flash of muzzles on both sides. I saw planes overhead, their bombs lighting the day to an even more extreme. I saw corpses lay like dolls in various poses. I saw rifles in the hundreds, some in pieces, some just away from their owners, some still with a hand gripping the trigger. This was war. I had wondered what types of experiences my fathers had been referring to. I don't know, to this day, what he had experienced. As for me, I experienced hell. By the end of the day, I was an invalid. I sat there, against that tree on the Rhine, as the corpses were wheeled away, buried in mass graves, others had arrangements to be sent home. I sat there clutching John's dog tags, knowing I had a grisly task to do when I returned home. I had already retrieved the letter he had to his family in his pocket, one he had written quickly and briefly, believing he would be on his way home as a hero. There was no fear. It was the letter of a child. I had written one myself. I reread it that night by the light of my lantern and I fed it into the lantern. I didn't care if I started a fire. It was clear that the child in me was killed that day. He lay there on the banks of the Rhine, the cold currents nipping at his toes, his eyes raised to the sky, wide and blue. Yet he could never be buried. He would lie there forever, along with the thousands of other who had died that day. This was war? This was the glory proclaimed in oh-so-many poems and books? The joyous party as I had seen in that film? No! There must have been some mistake, I attempted to reason. This can't be it.... This evil can't be what it seems. Yet that thought was never proved wrong. No matter how much of a "victory" a battle or war may be, there is always loss. Loss of life, loss of self, loss of something, it's inevitable. I returned home as soon as I could. I could no longer sleep. My attempts would result in fits. I'd rip the sheets off of my cot, pull my hair out, shred my clothes. I was sent home with another ship full of my countrymen. They too, had seen their share. The entire journey was spent in silence, save for the occasional grunt, groan, or one-word reply. There was no conversation, no display of letters, no showcase of stories of how many we had killed. Nothing. The day I had returned home, Catherine greeted me in New York City. My how she had aged in that year! She was even more beautiful than I remember, her dark hair flowing. Flowing like the currents of the Rhine. Flowing like the blood I had seen from so many wounds. It would haunt me forever. Catherine brought me home, where I received a warm reception from family. Yet I said nothing. I'd be asked a question and I'd grunt or groan, sigh or simply nod. There was no conversation, not from me. The incidents flashed in my mind, I could see John's face, ripe with laughter, and a moment later, gone, reduced to nothing more than a mess of tissue. What was this war we had created? Why did I rush to fight? Why had I been misled and mislead? I'm haunted by the specter of that child, the one that still lies on the banks of the Rhine. These questions were never answered. Not that day on the Rhine, not in the ensuing months, not in the decade following. Ten years later here I sit at my desk in Queens, New York, November 23, 1956, and these questions still have no answer. Catherine is asleep on the bed with our young child. She has to take care of him, lull him to sleep, praise him for his spoken words. I can't.

November 23, 1956 - TB