It rained bombs and it rained rain that day.
Yes, the day had been not much to speak of before. It was wet and his shoes were ruined, and then it was fire.
He came from the Bingham Tract but that's not here and that's not there.
That day showed him who he was.
I just got back two days ago from the Sandwich Islands and he is on my mind. More than usual.
He looked like the enemy but he was not.
He first did honor for this country fighting like hell to push back the tightening circle of Nazis pressing in on the lost battalion.
That was when two silver dollars in his front shirt pocket shielded his heart from german lead.
He always carried them after that for good luck but he lost them in one battle, the one he lost his arm in.
If you don't know San Terenzo, it's near Tuscany and it's where he almost fell for good.
There were too many germans and by the time he heard the hellish sound of machine gunfire, he had taken bullets right in the gut.
Right in the gut.
He didn't stop and this confused the Germans and they waited for him to fall but he stumbled forward and found the first nest.
Ammo sprayed from the Thompson submachine gun and he tossed a handful of hand grenades and that finished the job. On the first nest.
His men raced to him, said to stay, that they would continue but the led them cause that's what leaders do.
After the second nest was silenced, he fell in the mud. Loss of blood. But he had more.
He crawled toward the final bunker and when he got there,he fought like hell to stand,and when he did he cocked his arm to throw the grenade
And what happened next, his men remembered till they were old men, and told the story and most took them for liars. They told the truth.
A german took aim with is rifle grenade and struck our man's right elbow.
It paralyzed his arm and left the grenade "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore." he later said.
His soldiers, in shock moved in too help, but he told them to stop. He was afraid the useless hand that held the grenade might drop it.
The German desperately reloaded another grenade into his rifle, but he had an idea that this was the day he would die.
And it made the sound of his heartbeat louder than anything he had ever heard.
The German looked up once and he saw our man pry the grenade from his useless right hand to his left hand.
He stopped reloading.
He watched the grenade softly fly through the air, and he thought of how it reminded him of a girl pitching a softball.
And then he thought no more.
A bullet came from God knows where, hit him in the leg and he fell down the ridge and landed on the dead German boy.
He passed out the, and when he awoke he was lying on a piece of cloth that was between two sticks and he was being carried away.
His men looked to him and he used some badly needed strength to yell something that none of them forgot.
"As far as I know, nobody's called off this war yet."
When he got to the field station they cut what was left of his right arm off but there was no anesthesia and the howl of the hero was loud.
Nobody much remembers him for any of that but that don't mean it didn't happen.
It did.
And him with his family back home living in an internment camp.
Shame.
Shame.