The byproduct of war is death and misery. The goal of a soldier is to stay alive. You accomplish this by eliminating the enemy. It's a vicious cycle. I remember my first encounter with a dead body of someone I had known. It came a few weeks after I had joined the troupe. He was an armored car driver named Roik. He was also known as, "The Russian". I liked him, he was an upbeat guy, forever smiling and joking.
Well, that all ended when an 88 shell took out his car. When I looked at the body, it was horribly mangled. His leg was blown off from his knee, with the ligaments and tendons curled back from the stump towards his hip. The scene was so brutal that I quickly returned to where my squad was positioned. Armored cars can protect you from small arms, fire and some shrapnel, but a direct hit from an 88 shell is instant death.
Another time, we overran a small town in Germany. Before the Krauts left, they had lined 14 of their own dead in the town square. I guess they were waiting for the body baggers to haul them away after the battle. Our Captain, nice man that he was, sent us up some hot food for us to eat. It was a small town and the square had limited space. The mess line was set up about 12 feet from the bodies lying parallel. As we were passing through the chow line, some GIs were rifling the corpses for loot. One soldier got himself a good watch.
A few of us took our food across the square and sat on the curb to eat. Now picture this scene a few feet away, a wounded German soldier was dying. He was moaning and in shock as an American medic was trying to give him first aid. But the man was beyond help. A shot of morphine or a bullet would have made his end more merciful, but euthanasia is not my specialty. Looking bad. It's hard to believe that a softie like me was involved in this insane madness. The indifference, the brutality and the suffering were so real. But you tolerated it to stay alive another day. All I could think about was the last line of that old song. "Gee ma, I wanna go home.
Editor’s note: Private Michael NMI Roik (32838649) was KIA on August 8 1944, near Saint-Siméon, in France.