I was a twelve when it happened.
We were sitting in the den, mother, daddy, my little brother, and me. The
television was playing, that old, big, black and white, large cabinet TV.
Mother and daddy were sitting on the sofa. My brother was sitting beside me. My
memory says he wasn’t bothering me.
We were watching a movie. It was The Story of GI Joe, the
screen adaptation of the story by the same name, written by Pulitzer Prize
winning author Ernie Pyle.
The movie tells the story of the U. S. Army marching up the boot of Italy. It’s
told from the point of view of the grunt, the infantryman slogging through the
mud to the point of exhaustion. He crawls into a foxhole to wait higher up
command decisions, and then he slugs his way through battle after battle, again
and again.
In Pyle’s story the army gets bogged down at Monte Cassino. Here the Germans
are using the monastery atop the mount for their spotters as well as their
artillery. Every time the army moves the guns fire and they are picked to
pieces. Meanwhile the generals are talking, considering whether or not to bomb
the monastery, a religious shrine to the people.
One character in the movie has received a 78rpm record from home. The letter
accompanying the record tells that the sound contained in the record is the
voice of the GI’s first born son, a son never seen. Somewhere along the line,
the GI had picked up an old victrola. It didn’t work. After every patrol he’d
come back into the hole they’d dug in the bank of a gully. He’s pull of his
helmet and battle clothing. He’d begin to tinker with the machine. Over and
over, day after day he tries to get it to work, to play the voice he’d been
waiting.
The eventual day comes when he flops down exhausted after another patrol. He
pulls the victrola to him, works on it some more. He pauses, places the record
on the turntable and cranks the machine. He hears it; the sound is clear
beneath the scratching background, “Daddy! Daddy!” says the voice.
The GI, after months of being holed up in horrible conditions, breaks. He runs
outside his hole; he raises a fist against the Germans atop the mountain. He
screams. And then he falls. He falls splish splash into the mud. He slides. His
face is a contortion of mud-soaked rage. In my pre-teen mind it was comedy. It
was funny. I laughed.
It took only a second to realize I was the only one laughing. I turned to look
at my daddy. He was sitting on the sofa. Mother was holding his hand. He was
weeping like a baby. Large tears flowed like a river to soak his shirt.
I didn’t look back at the TV. I looked at my daddy for a long, long time. There
was a mystery here. There were things going on I did not understand. My daddy;
my big, strong, invincible daddy was crying.
I remember going to my room to think about this. I don’t know how the movie
ended. I do know my daddy never talked about this. And I know that never again
did I play war in the backyard.
That night is impressed on my mind after all these years. That sight of my
daddy’s tears changed my life. Somewhere in the mud of Italy, my daddy saw too
many of his friends make sacrifice for their country, for freedom. Many of
those made the ultimate sacrifice.
Daddy never said a word about that night, about my laughter and my leaving the
room. He didn’t have to. That was the night I discovered that dying for one’s
country is not funny.
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