Van Loon met many interesting men in the army. Harry, an atheist who knew the Bible cover to cover, was an older man that like to argue theology and vowed he would never go overseas. He grew depressed in England and seldom left the camp. When he was wounded in battle, he could have survived his injuries, but he just gave up his will to live and passed away. Another man, Sergeant X, was a high ranking Non-Com in charge of taking POWs back over the line and turning them over to the proper people. However, he was seldom gone long enough to cover the proper amount of miles, a subject of gossip among the division. Sergeant X later became the only person killed when some drivers and trucks were shell attacked by the Germans; justice, perhaps. There was a man from Alabama that was ashamed of the fact that he could not read or write, so Van Loon kept his secret and would read his letters to him and write letters back. After three years of constant training, the 11th was an old outfit in Europe. Many sergeants and corporals returned home with battle fatigue, or turned “yellow,” after ten days in combat.
At one point, Van Loon’s division lived with a poor family in a house/barn structure with stalls and pens for cows, horses, pigs, chickens, hay, and grain. The family’s conditions were terrible, so they were given whatever clothing and food the men could spare. Because Van Loon was known by farm boy among the group, he was recruited to kill a dying horse down the street with his rifle. Strangely, the entire family that owned the horse was called over to witness the killing of the horse. This was a weird situation for him because the children in his family were always told to go inside before an animal was killed. Another time, he was recruited to cook a large turkey someone had killed. He showed them how to pick the feathers, dress the bird, carve the bird, and cook it in a pot. Tom Turkey was put on the stove on and off as they moved around for a couple of days and was finally tender enough to eat. The deaths and injuries Van Loon saw would have been harder if he had been close to the people. During the war, rest hours went quickly, but the waiting was scary. The excitement and adrenaline kept him moving and alert. He wrote, “Spending over half your days outside, 24 hours a day in Europe from Christmas until May 8 is not really a picnic,” (Van Loon 5). The days were 25F and nights were ten below. The men slept in shifts and used holes in the snow, pine branches, and bed rolls to sleep on. He never completely undressed from his wool clothes on from Christmas until May 8 and never showered. The only washing he did was his hands and face with snow in the mornings. He could use the short amount of sleep he got to dry his socks, and he would switch them out a lot to avoid disease. Those that grew lax with this would lose toes and feet. They would sleep in the woods, fall in line in the morning, fight off Germans as shells started coming in, roll into town, and sleep in houses on occasion, where they would look for souvenirs: pistols, cameras, boots. Sometimes, there would be a person hiding in these houses, so he could never let his guard down. They were careful not to get too far ahead of where they were scheduled to be or their own planes would start shooting. Food was eaten on mess kits that had to be cleaned very well in order to avoid diarrhea, which happened to a few on occasion. The water was terrible, so they drank wine in the wine country. Some men liked to get drunk as they drove through, and the driver was saving some bottles of cognac for after the war. As they rode through towns, they saw dead horses on the side of the rode with big hunks of meat carved out of every hind quarter. In letters, they were not allowed to write about military things, so they could only do small talk. |