THE PASSING OF THE PAST

She thought. As usual, she had to work hard at it. Today, though, she applied additional diligence. It was important. She stared, but saw little, just jerky thought-images rolling by like frames in an ancient film strip. She listened, but heard only long-dead voices. It was beginning to prepare to start.

Her mind settled on a time during her childhood when her daddy’s brother and his family would visit on Saturday nights. Every week they came. It never failed, for life followed a more predictable path in those days. The car would stop. The horn would honk. Then the whole bunch of relatives would pile into the house. On those evenings, the women talked, the kids played, and the men drank beer in the basement. Meanwhile, Time, that stealer of dreams, notched another week onto the tally-pole of life.

Around ten, the women began to listen. If she tried, she could remember why they listened. The men would begin to sing a parody of the song Sweet Adeline. When they reached, “your feet stink just like mine,” the women would nod to one another and move to the door leading to the basement. The kids would pick up any scattered toys and store them away like memories that were no longer useful. All was predictable.

While the women retrieved their men, the kids would bound up the stairs and take turns sliding down the banister. Down they would come, and then race back to the top for another turn, over and over until the order came to stop.

She hated to hear the stop for she had always supposed the other kids did it because they enjoyed the experience of speed. She enjoyed it for a different reason, having found at an early age that it felt good in a way she didn’t quite understand, that is, if she wore a loose-fitting skirt that allowed more-or-less direct contact. She sometimes played banister riding when she was alone in the house, using a personal technique that was much slower than the Saturday night rides. It made for an even nicer experience.

One day, the ride took her somewhere she had never been, took her someplace special that was hers and hers alone. She loved going there and never came all the way back. Not long after that, a shower nozzle performed the same task. The opportunities multiplied, and she soon found other ways. Was she afflicted or something? She didn’t understand, but thought it best not to tell anyone, especially the priest. That much was for sure.

Well, she had told Jeremy much later, but he was special—young, married, noncommittal Jeremy was just what a lively woman hoped for in life. He posed no threat to her and called what they did “sport-fucking.” That sounded jolly to her, and she didn’t mind teaching him a thing or two, hence the confession about the banister rides. She smiled. Jeremy was sweet and belonged with her in that special place.

She had even taught him the importance of foreplay, though that sharing of expertise had unintended consequences when he got too good at it, and things would start moving far faster than she preferred. Things were doing that now as well. Back then, she would whisper in his ear, “Slow down. Be still for a minute,” although it never worked. He would try his best to be motionless, but the slightest twitch kicked her into action. She would arch her back and scream while her legs locked around him and held him in place. He had better, by God, hold on for dear life at that moment … stay in the saddle, so to speak. Good times, overall. She smiled again from simply thinking about it. Jeremy was special and life offers too few special things. But she had helped Jeremy get a promotion and that took him away. Plus, she hadn’t told him everything.

She hadn’t told him, for example, about what she thought of as her “near-black” experience. He was a man who came on to her in a bar where she sat on a stool wearing one of what she and Emma called their “easy-access skirts,” in this case access for roving hands and not bannisters. She was younger then and looking for new things, not things to write home about, mind you, just things to file away and recall later, at times like this. Special things.

Back then, a tumble in the parking lot with a handsome man seemed promising. “Sexperience-gathering,” she called it. He seemed nice, he smelled good, and he had a big car and money, far more good points than the typical man could claim. There was room in the car to accomplish any number of new ideas, and she had always been goal-oriented. The size of the car meant she could move around a bit if the mood struck her. But after a long period of tasting tongue, lips, and ebony skin, accompanied by some skillful rubbing, she found size could be a deterrent as well.

She had, years later, told someone about this: her friend Emma, who shared her taste in skirts as well has her taste in men. Emma knew how to keep secrets, and besides, they both knew enough about one another to ensure silence. Emma’s eyes had grown wide when she heard, “it was as long as a sausage and as big around as a tomato juice can. I had to run, leaving him there holding it while I hopped, skipped, and jumped away, pulling my drawers up as I went. I’m going to call it my ‘easy-escape skirt’ from now on.” But even now on lonely nights, she wishes she had stayed on track and rode it through.

She and Emma both laughed about it. That, of course, was the last time she had seen Emma laugh.

She smiled again. But then she thought of children and stopped smiling. They promised her no joy in life. She found them self-centered and grasping. She read somewhere that the human species had such a long gestation period that the final years of embryonic development had to be accomplished outside the womb. She found it could last much longer than that. It wasn’t unusual, she had observed, for it to last into adulthood for families who could afford it. For those who couldn’t, there was the military or the penal system. Either way liberated the parents, and she was happy for them. Let anyone blame her. Fuck them all.

She forced her thoughts away from children and into the further past and memories of “the big nasty,” as they called it back then. She held out until she was 15, almost, then she had gotten around to it at a secluded lake house after a dance. Afterwards, she wasn’t sure it was worth all the anticipation. The boy had spoiled the moment by promising her they would be married. She would work while he went to college. He would come home, tell her what college was like, and they would marry. Then, he solemnly announced, she would have sex with him, and only him, every night, pretty much forever. Forever?

That had almost clamped her thighs together for good. But, it was difficult at that age to arrange a night free from parental surveillance, so she had gone ahead and tried it. It wasn’t too bad, not as good as a long spell with the banister, but not too bad. Best thing was: it had given her a taste for more. Therein lay the value, she supposed.

They stuck the name “whipper” on her in high school, or, more precisely, “whupper,” as one of her classmates, a boy from the South, phrased it. She shook her head when she thought about this. It wasn’t fair, not a bit. It was the first time, but not the last, in her life that she would face that reality. She hadn’t really done the deed that spawned the name. She had spurned a date’s advances because he smelled bad, and he had started the rumor in retaliation. It stuck, and every boy she went out with afterwards expected the mythical privilege. None were successful but idle talk will suffocate reality any day of the week. She learned later that the lie even stuck to her younger sister like a malignant, life-sucking slime. “Whupper Junior,” they called her. She had taught them, though.

She then realized that men start out stupid and get worse. They could be useful, but that was about it. If reality could provide them a thousandth part of the sexual escapades that locker-room talk did, they might improve, or that’s how she had always felt about it. Meanwhile, they could always be on tap, and sometimes on top if she felt like it. That was it as far as she was concerned. High school days ended in disappointment.

She grew up quick and learned to be picky. In college, a boy who could be patient and take instruction was good for at least five dates. No more. Any more would get them to thinking awful thoughts, sometimes with the word “love” growing from an otherwise pleasant conversation like a weed slithering out of the ground in a garden. That made them forget the things she had taught them, and she didn’t like that. She liked a boy who could learn, utilize what he had learned, and move on to make room for another. They were always free—the boys—to pass along what they had learned to the other girls. She was charitable in that way.

It was a way of repaying life for granting her such special gifts.

Thinking about these things right now, she touched herself, in an “inappropriate manner” as the nuns used to call it, just to calm down a bit. The warm memories of the banister rides had ruined any chances for true peace. Funny how memories worked. That made her think of the day one of her husbands had confessed that the reason he failed, so often, to perform was that he would be haunted by memories of his first wife. That’s when she quit believing in a god that could create, and allow the continuation of, the male of the species for any purpose other than a woman’s casual pleasure. Who could blame her for feeling that way?

“College boys were the worst,” she was thinking now. Had computers been more advanced at the time, they would probably have had a sexual version of “fantasy football.” They could form imaginary harems and vie for digital prominence. “Fantasy Fucking.” Why not?

Most men proved unredeemable. Kurt had been different. Kurt had been nice. He taught her some things involving ice cubes, for example. She had once ensnared a man who had loads of money with the ice cube technique Kurt called “frosty balls.” That particular man was special because he lavished money on her and took a long time to understand what was happening.

Remembering Kurt, though, made her think again about the bannisters. Then she silently hoped that Allah, or whichever god was to blame, withheld the virgins from the son-of-a-bitch who ended Kurt’s further quest for mastery of the sexual act. She allowed her mind to drift back, and when she saw no one was watching, she folded her pillow, crammed it between her legs, and pretended that it was Kurt’s head. She stopped and jerked it away when she recalled that they had never found his head. They never found his head but his family had sent her his dog tags and medals. They didn't want them. She lost them in the most recent fire.

She felt her eyes begin to swell. “Damn it all to hell,” she thought. She moved the pillow back behind her, rested on it, and closed her eyes.

She was dreaming of bannisters when she heard a voice calling to her, “Mrs. Adams, it’s time.”

 GEORGE MEADE, THE VIETS, AND ME

By Jimmie von Tungeln

     October 3, 2023

        I can’t provide one. [An explanation foer the lack of appreciation] What I can do is recite my path toward understanding how the stories are entwined. No doubt there are other unappreciated individuals or groups who have endured the misfortunes of history’s spotted chronicles. England’s Alan Turing comes to mind as do the men and women of color and same-sex orientation who served our country through its wars only to face discrimination and prejudice at home. I can’t speak for them. But I can speak for the Viets with some degree of authority. And I will try to provide some solace to the neglected personage of George Meade.

        Take the Viets, for example. Few people in the 1960s or 1970s would have publicly condemned them. That would have required a reason, an explanation, or even a verifiable fact. In my personal experience the enmity was personal, casual, and multifaceted. It included:

-          The band of protesters who met our plane at the San Bernadino, California airport upon our arrival home from the war.

-          The airline representative who told me, with distaste in his demeanor, that the baggage (seabags) of “you people” wasn’t processed with those of normal people but was shuttled to a fenced bin three flights of stars below the main course.

-          The veterans’ associations that didn’t want “losers” as members.

-          The personnel officer on the ship to which I was assigned on my return who bragged, “I always give those Vietnam vets the shittiest assignment we have in order to put them in their place.”

-          The job interviewer who suggested I might omit my military service from my application.

-          The myriad Americans who accepted the stereotype of my brothers and sisters as drug-crazed sociopaths.

-          The book, film, and TV producers, even including some Viets, who clung to the stereotype of misfits who could not function in or after stressful actions.

      In fairness, both General Meade and the Viets generated some of this animosity. I’ll cover that in a later section. For now, may we just say that all had a right to expect better treatment?

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[i] Catton, Bruce. “Grant Takes Command.”

GEORGE MEADE, THE VIETS, AND ME

By Jimmie von Tungeln

September 30, 2023

After beginning my study of the battle, intrigue led me to the National Parks service. The service maintains a web site on the battle of Gettysburg. I went there to find out more about this man Meade. If any site should direct my study, this one should.

      At that time, the effort met with failure and surprise. The National Park Website on the Gettysburg Battlefield Park did not mention General George G. Meade whatsoever. Instead, it concentrated on, as might be expected, Robert E. Lee. It also featured prominently a rebel division commander, George E. Pickett. The latter’s division was present for only one day of the battle, Being a fresh unit, it took part, with two other divisions, in the most spectacular failure of the battle. More on that later. Having enjoyed a 100-year publicity campaign by historical revisionists, that rebel general now represents America’s most famous, yet beloved, loser.

      As for the forgotten General Meade, Allen C. Guelzo summoned it well in a 2013 essay republished in 2017:

      “And yet the mention of Meade has always been met with a certain degree of pause—surprise that an officer with such modest credentials could manage to pull off such a mammoth victory as Gettysburg, and then chirping criticism that, having triumphed as he did, Meade failed to do more, failed to stop Lee from escaping back into Virginia and thus end the Civil War right there and then. Although both of those reactions are unfair, they are also accurate. And together, they have come to define George Gordon Meade’s long-term reputation.”[i]

      At the time of this writing, the NPS website on the battlefield treats Meade with more deference, a sign of a growing but grudging acceptance of the man’s remarkable performance. That it has taken a century and a half for such redemption seems regrettable, but is welcome, nonetheless.

      Age has resulted in the most beneficial catalyst for the Viets. At this time, they have become too “long in the tooth” to play ubiquitous crazed psychopaths, lost souls, or deranged superheroes—sometimes a bit of each. Those are roles they filled for years in film, TV, and modern literature. Oh, they stand in on occasion as the most despicable in a clan of despicables, usually southerners or actors attempting to portray southerners. These days they mostly appear as old men with funny caps who wander the streets dreaming of lost love and “lid bags.”

      As Scott Cooper expressed in it a piece for the Modern War Institute at West Point in 2021:

      “In Vietnam the troops lost their noble and heroic image. To others, they were baby killers and suckers. The stereotype of the US soldiers in the war were the goons who perpetrated the atrocities of My Lai, or the blue-collared Boston Southies who didn’t have the connections to get out of the draft. And the result is a generation of combat veterans perceived as products of a single mold, one that gave us James Webb and John Rambo—that of the aggrieved warrior.”[ii]

      All parties, General Meade and the Viets, wander through history with their images drawn to whatever viewpoint correlates highly with an individual viewpoint. Like the nautical Flying Dutchman, their true legacy has never found a safe harbor.

---

[i] Guelzo, Allen C. “George Meade’s Mixed Legacy,” Historynet, 2017 https://www.historynet.com/george-meades-mixed-legacy/

[ii] AFTER VIETNAM, AMERICAN SOCIETY’S RELATIONSHIP WITH ITS MILITARY WAS BADLY FRAYED. AFTER TWENTY YEARS OF POST-9/11 WARS, IT IS AGAIN. Scott Cooper

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[i] AFTER VIETNAM, AMERICAN SOCIETY’S RELATIONSHIP WITH ITS MILITARY WAS BADLY FRAYED. AFTER TWENTY YEARS OF POST-9/11 WARS, IT IS AGAIN. Scott Cooper

 

GEORGE MEADE, THE VIETS, AND ME

By Jimmie von Tungeln

 Prologue

It takes a Vietnam veteran to understand the lack of appreciation America has paid the victor of the country's most famous battle. That would be the Battle of Gettysburg, fought on the first three days of July 1863. The general would be Maj. Gen. George Gordon Mead. If you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry, most Americans haven’t. A majority of those who do are ones who never forgave him for his monumental act of temerity. His army won the battle, if an army can ever “win” a battle. And he was to blame for it.

      Who was he to defeat the undefeatable Robert E. Lee? Lee was then the rebellion’s darling, later to become an American favorite, second only to George Washington. How could he have been bested by someone named Meade, days before only an unknown Corps commander in the U.S. Army? Americans don’t easily forgive those who fail to live up to their mythical dogmas. Nor do they embrace those who destroy their most cherished fantasies.

      General Meade paid dearly for his transgressions. A later generation would suffer in kind. The difference? Meade earned his historical displeasure for a victory. Veterans of the police action in Southeast Asia earned theirs for a defeat. In both cases unpopular figures shattered myths. We don’t like that. We don’t allow it. We stop it when we can with whatever means are available.

      Meade paid with historical neglect, ridicule, and outright prevarication. Vietnam veterans, we’ll call them “Viets,” paid with the forfeiture of their valor, of which there was more than the public at large would admit. In both cases, the damage proved irresolute.

      Victims fell under the spell of stubborn myths. The so-called “Lost Cause Myth,” some now call it the “Loser Cause Myth,” not only destroyed reputations, it destroyed the lives of fellow Americans for more than a century. It even clings to its evil purposes in modern times. Malicious, but talented, artists, like D.W. Griffith and  Margaret Mitchell, helped shunt generations of African-Americans into ghettos, substandard schools, and labor that barely provided sustenance. Powerful leaders like Woodrow Wilson stood by, sometimes idly and sometimes not. Myths feed on it all: adherence, acceptance, and indifference.

      Viets also fell under the grinding spell of myths. Drug-crazed, spoiled brats in no way deserved the war flags of “The Greatest Generation.” Yes, that’s the one that forced its brothers of color to come home after the war to ghettos, substandard schools, and labor that barely provided sustenance. More recently, the Viets are enjoying some relief from the myth of “They could have won if the leaders had allowed them to,” a laughable tenant were it not so poetically alluring. Myths feed on it all: absolution, neatly packaged explanations, and ignorance.

      All this swirled about in my mind for years. Personally, I knew the Viets suffered from a bad rap. I had been there. After I decided to study the Gettysburg battle, I began to suspect that George G. Meade deserved more respect than Americans had given him. All he did was take a badly demoralized and undersupplied army, filled with political intrigue and, after only two days in command defeat the immortal Robert E. Lee. The latter, I began to suspect, deserved less respect than America had given him. Myths feed on it all: selective facts, well-crafted falsehoods, and propagation.

To be continued

COVER-UPS

Why I fear they will get away with it. If we follow the Woodward and Bernstein theme from the 1970s, what will get mendacious politicians in the long run is the cover-up or attempt thereof. It is, as Ernest Hemingway said, “pretty to think so.” With this bunch, however, there is no attempt at a cover-up, no attempt at all.

If anything, they are proud to have what they did reported.

They know that their base will stick no matter what and that enough centrists will fly to any shining lie or misrepresentation they posit.

Cover-ups are for sissies.

If they released the Unabomber from prison, Donald Trump could put him on the ticket as his vice-presidential candidate and carry my home state by 60%.

Cover-ups are a waste of time and resources.

This bunch follows the advice of Lennie Bruce, the comedian who said to men caught cheating on their wives, “Lie, lie even if they have you on film.”

Cover-ups fail.

Lies win.

Besides, they can just have SCOTUS rule that a lie is the truth.

 FREEDOM

By Jimmie von Tungeln

 

He was thinking that it wasn’t fair and the thought pricked at him like a bad memory on a restless night. The whole damned thing wasn’t fair. He sniffed. Even the smell wasn’t fair. He slapped at a mosquito and heard a voice behind him. He stiffened and raised his rifle.

“Livingstone,” it said, “curly pubic hair. It’s me, Shaeffer. I’m coming up behind you.”

The rifle came to rest. The man spoke back, without moving his head or taking his eyes off the rice paddy spread before him, a growth-quilted blanket, reminding him of the blankets the old women once sewed, their wrists nipping and drawing, conversing with soft voices, while the men played dominos and spoke of politics. Back home.

“Come ahead,” Livingstone said. He felt, more than heard, a body sliding along the grass behind him. When a head appeared beside him, he asked, low, without looking, “Curly pubic hair? Who the hell thinks up these passwords?” He spoke slightly above a whisper.

“The El Tee,” Shaeffer said. “He thinks they’re cute.”

“And if he thinks they are, who can say they aren’t?” Livingstone said. “What’s up?”

“Just checking on the outposts. How’s everything?”

“How the fuck do you think everything is?”

Shaeffer scanned the view before them. Far away, the rice fields, visible in the full-moon, rose near the base of a mountain some 3,000 feet in height. He listened, then spoke. “Let me take a guess,” he said. “Crappy?”

“It’s not fair.”

“What?”

“All of it.”

“Ain’t you happy with the food? We’ll get all the milk we want to eat when we get back to base.”

Livingston didn’t answer. Instead, he pointed to the bulge where the jungle greens

covered the bandages around his shoulder. “I should have gone out on the last chopper. You know that,” he said.

“Yeah well,” Shaeffer said. “There just wasn’t room.” He touched the hard metal end of Livingston’s rifle. “Besides,” he said, “you can still shoot.”

“Why did we leave there and come down here?” Livingston asked, pointing toward the mountain. “after the shit-storm we went through taking it.”

“I’ll ask General Westmorland next time we have cocktails,” Shaeffer said. “Other than that, may I report back to him that all is well with your soul?”

“It stinks here,” Livingstone said. “Why this spot? Wasn’t there a place to camp upwind?”

“Question is,” Shaeffer said, “Why all the dead bodies that are causing the stink?”

“Ask the godammed Americal Division boys. Way I heard it, they told the gooks in the village to choose sides, and when they came back, lo and behold.”

“Lo and behold what?”

“They were hiding some rice,” Livingstone said, “so rat-a-tat-tat. No more VC sympathizers in the vil’ and the VC are going hungry. The gook kids ain’t though. Mama-sans. Papa-sons. I heard they wasted them all.”

“Tough break,” Shaeffer said. “Why didn’t they didi mau? They know what we do to villages that choose the wrong side.”

“Where would they go? They’ve lived in the same spot forever.”

“Sin Loy,” Shaeffer said. “Too fucking bad.”

“I wasn’t even supposed be drafted,” Livingston said. “I had been accepted into grad school.”

“Sin fucking loy,” Scaeffer said. “The rain falls on the just and the unjust. I was going to be a preacher and make some real fucking money.”

“I have friends who got exempted for grad school.”

“It all depends on your draft board. I can’t imagine that you would have pissed them off or anything like that.”

“Up yours,” Livingston said. “Don’t you have something to do?”

“My job is to bring comfort,” he said. “Here’s something for you.” He reached into a front pocket and retried a piece of paper folded into a packet. He put it to his nose, sniffed, and handed it to Livingstone. “Here,” he said.

“What’s is it?”

“A bit of muscle rub,” he said. Put a dab in each nostril and it will keep out the smell of the dead gooks for a while.”

Livingstone smelled the paper. “Okay,” he said. “Do you know when we pull out from here?”

“When we’ve killed all the gooks.”

“Fuck off.”

“Oh,” Shaeffer said, “I’m supposed to remind you.”

“Remind me of what?”

“The Brass thinks we need to spend some money tonight. Budget talks are stalled.”

“Not my fault.”

“We all must bear the burden of guilt,” Shaeffer said, “but you will may yet be cleansed of your transgressions.”

“How?”

“Shooting gooks, or at least shooting at them.”

“Weren’t you supposed to tell me something?”

“Oh,” Shaeffer said. “Death from on high tonight.”

“Where?”

“Shaeffer pointed at the mountain. “There.”

“Where we just left from?”

“The very place.”

Livingstone thought. “Do you think the NVA has moved back up there?”

“I doubt it. That ain’t it at all. The Air Force just needs to expend some fireworks so their budget won’t get cut. Spend it or lose it. They have no choice. They are caught in this endless cycle of beg and justify. No way they can quit and let the Navy have their money.”

Livingston stared at the mountain, then said. “I think I understand now why we’re here in this stink hole.”

“Why?”

“If the flyboys chase the gooks off the mountain this time—if there are any gooks there —Brass thinks they will flee this way and we can ‘crocodile’ them as they go by.”

“That would send them straight to Jesus,” Shaeffer said.

“Except for the fact that they are probably back across the DMZ by now. If not, what if they don’t flee, but come right at our little piece of paradise? Have you noticed there’s a jungle directly behind us?”

“Details. Details,” Shaeffer said. Privates ain’t supposed to worry about details. That’s for corporals like me and above. You just respond.”

“I responded by walking point for three straight days,” Livingston said. “It’s not fair.”

“The El Tee trusts you.”

Livingstone ignored him. “The air was a lot nicer up there,” he said, pointing at the mountain again. “I thought that’s why we took it, to have some fresh air. This whole damn country smells like rotten fruit when you’re stuck in the bottoms."

"The air show starts at zero-three-three zero,” Shaeffer said.

“Speak English out here,” Livingston said. “What time?”

“Three-thirty in the morning. Don’t panic when it wakes you up. You might start firing and give our position away.”

“As if there is a person in this fuckin’ country that doesn’t know exactly where we are.”

“Be seeing you,” Shaeffer said. “It’s been nice.” Livingston didn’t look, but felt the other turn on side and look behind them. “By god,” he said, “there is a jungle back there. Don’t you dare let them get past here.” With that, he was gone.

Livingston stared at the top of the mountain. When the order came to move out, his company had only been there two days. The men grumbled, but obeyed. They packed with sullen silence and assembled in tactical formation. In strict order of march, they began their descent. With each step downward, the air grew heavier and as the temporary feeling of relief abandoned them. From above, they could survey the countryside. From that position, it was a beautiful place. Shades of green, some of it checkered, some of it smooth, and some of it stippled by the jungle, combined to offer a peaceful view from the top. It was hard, from there, to imagine the dangers and conflicts waiting for them below.

Halfway down, someone spotted some sort of ape nestled in a tree. It nodded in cadence as they passed, like a sentry taking a count. Someone spread the word. The men began to salute the creature as they passed. It made no sign that their efforts made an impact. He continued to nod, and stared as if they were just the most recent of a forever of intruders. When the last man had passed, the ape picked a leaf and began to chew it, still nodding as if he were digesting facts as well as food.

At the bottom of the mountain, they Lieutenant had turned them toward the noxious smell blowing from the east and ordered them into patrol formation. He placed Livingston on point. They marched into the smell, slowing as they came closer to the jungle. Just as the air became unbearable, orders came to stop. An hour later, they waited, having dug in and consumed a supper of C-rations with sullen and silent comradeship. As night fell, they manned outposts. That was earlier. Now, Livingston scanned the area under his responsibility and thought again, “It’s not fair.”

He remembered the packet Shaeffer had given him. Retrieving it, he opened it and spread half the ointment into each nostril. The scent freed him from the smell of death. He smiled and wished, for a mere second, that he had thought to thank Schaeffer.

Thinking of Shaeffer made him think of the time. He moved his hand below the breastwork he had dug and, shielding his wrist, removed the small flap that covered the dial of his watch. The numbers shone faintly in the night … three twenty-seven. He covered the flap and moved his hand to his ammunition belt. He removed two clips and slapped the business edge of each on the palm of his hand. He blew on their tops and placed them in front of him on the edge of his foxhole, just six inches from the barrel of his rifle. He checked the safety and waited.

Seconds passed and Livingston listened for any sound ahead of him. Behind him, the platoon slept, perhaps unaware of the commotion in store. A faint buzzing filled the night. Livingston looked to the east.

A stream of fire streaked across the far horizon … a jet. The stream neared the mountain and then rose quickly. Almost at once, a ball of fire erupted below it and ran along the mountain’s rim. Another stream appeared, and another ball of flame. Then another. Livingston froze, transfixed by the sight and ignoring the firing around him. He watched the mountain erupt in bursts of roiling fire. Flames moved to the west as the planes led them along the length of the mountain. After what seemed like an hour of this, but actually only minutes, the jets disappeared.

As the fires blazed, Livingstone heard a distant roar, a sound like an ancient engine might make while struggling to fulfill its duty. Seconds passed before the far away sky began to lighten. Then he could see the heavy transport aircraft dropping massive parachute flares. They descended slowly striving to prolong their moment of glory, drifting with the wind. Soon, they lit the entire surface of the mountain. Again, the illumination moved from east to west, as if a giant hand was moving along the surface flipping light switches. Then Livingstone looked to the east and saw what looked like red hot rivets from flowing in waves from invisible, but massive, buckets … mini guns.

Livingston laid his rifle on the ground and leaned forward. The sky was buzzing now with the sound of helicopter gunships. Their twin guns were each firing nearly 4,000 rounds per minute, each fifth round a tracer, hence the image of rivets. Livingston couldn’t take his eyes away. It was if someone had arranged the light show for his enjoyment. Bleachers from which to enjoy the entertainment would have been appropriate. He folded his arms on the earth and placed his chin on them.

He felt himself lifted by the sight. He no longer felt trapped the unfairness of war as he heard the explosions of rockets adding a staccato under-theme to the majesty of the mountain’s destruction. The universe was telling him how inconsequential he and his yearning for fairness and freedom were. As the tracers flowed back and forth, he felt in rhythm with the night. He shook his head back and forth in the pure wonderment.

The show ended and the night passed. The ointment in Livingstone’s nose faded and the smell brought back the realities of war. No hordes fled from mountain. No waves of NVA troops drove into the encampment. A private relieved him at zero four-hundred hours and he slept until revile. The time came to move out. The men packed their belongings, attended their weapons, and met in formation. The Lieutenant inspected them, nodded, and shared their new orders. They would move west, away from the noxious odor, and toward a landing zone where they would join fresh units for new search and destroy patrols.

This finished, he ordered them into formation and pointed to Livingstone. “Take point,” he said.

The only thing that moved was the smoke still rising from the mountain. Only the smell from the village of death reminded them that life had once existed in that direction. Now, all was dead. The normal jungle sounds even fell in volume. The silence was broken when Livingston spoke. “Fuck you,” he said.

“What did you say, private?”

“I said fuck you.”

“Beg pardon?”

“If you want someone to take point, take it yourself.”

“Are you disobeying a direct order?”

“Goddamn right.”

The jungle sounds stopped completely. From the mountain, an audible explosion announced that the night’s work had not ended. The slow death of the mountain top would continue for days. The eyes of the entire platoon shifted to the Lieutenant. A battle of wills was in the offing, and soldiers take entertainment whenever and wherever they can find it. The Lieutenant glanced at the troops and then at Livingston. “Want to repeat what you just said?”

Livingstone didn’t flinch. “It’s not my turn,” he said. “Get someone else, or take point yourself.”

The wind increased and the smell was making the men nauseated. They could hear the other units moving.

“Baxter,” the Lieutenant yelled. “Take point.”

As the men assumed formation, the rain began to fall. The drops moved along the length of the platoon and then followed the edge of the jungle. The men started walking to somewhere. The rain increased as if trying to cleanse a small part of the world. Far off, the top of the mountain still smoked.

 

A Daughter of the 313^th

By Jimmie von Tungeln

 

            Ask Brenda von Tungeln why she decided, as a middle-aged woman, to attend a World War Two infantry reunion and she will answer that she did it for her dad. As his only child, she had always intended to take him to one of his regimental reunions, but things like growing up, becoming educated, pursuing a professional career, and getting married—to the author in 1972—forced postponement after postponement. The annual invitations piled up.

            “Finally, one year I just decided to do it,” she says. “They held the reunion in Pittsburg and I had never been there. So I signed up.”

            She never imagined the decision would lead her to new friends, a prolonged study of the history of the 313th Regiment of the 79^th Infantry Division, and an encounter with a lost moment of family history.

All this happened despite the fact that when she left for the reunion in the summer of 1999, her dad couldn’t even make the trip. He was suffering from the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s.

            So what happens when a lone woman shows up at a convention filled with veterans, all of whom are old enough to be her father?

            “I knew it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to find someone who actually knew my dad,” she says. “The 79^th Infantry Division had thousands of men at its peak. It contained battalions, regiments, companies, platoons, and squads. An individual soldier usually only knew the men in his squad. If a man was a replacement, the other squad members might not even remember him at all.”

            “I didn’t care though,” she adds. “I just wanted to meet as many people who might have known him as I could.”

            Robert Julius Cole might have lived out his life without ever venturing far from Lonoke County, Arkansas had not it been for the war. His only dream beyond the world of farming was the occasional thought, when nature proved particularly vicious, that he might someday get a more stable job “working at a filling station.” Arkansas summers have caused more than one farmer to dream of a different career.

Then World War Two happened.

He received his call for service in early 1944 and found himself in Texas training for the infantry. Arriving in Europe in August 1944, he joined A Company, of the 313^th Infantry Regiment as it headed across France.

The 79^th Division became known in the lexicon of World War Two History as “a fine attack division,” an honor among the highly honored.  Its members wore the Cross of Lorraine from service in World War I. Dormant for years thereafter, it was re-mobilized it 1942. After landing in Normandy on D-Day plus eight, it fought almost continually across France, Belgium, and Germany until war’s end.

            Afterwards, most units began annual reunions. By the time Brenda had decided to attend one, she could boast of being a minor historian of the 79th, partly from study and partly from the stories her dad told over the course of more than 50 years.

Thus resolved, she left her husband to look after things at home and her mom to look after her dad. She explained to him as best she could what she was doing. That proved difficult. He was no longer the strapping twenty-one year old that had landed in France in 1944, nor was he the lively story teller who graced every table with a tale or two, or three. He wasn’t even the gentle father who, after the war was over, came home, married, doted on his daughter, and refused ever to fire a gun again.

This time he just looked and nodded as she explained where she was going. Whether he understood or not lingers as a mystery of the cruelest type.

            A plane ride and taxi fare later, she checked into the convention hotel. She didn’t stay in her room long. Instead, she headed for the main lobby and began asking questions. She had things to do.

She had just started introducing herself to anyone standing still long enough when a man startled her with the simple statement: “I knew your dad.” To her further amazement, he added, “I have a Nazi flag at home that your dad and a bunch of us captured in 1944 and signed.”           The man was Jim O’Neil, from near Sacramento, California. He waded ashore at Normandy when he was barely 15.

            They have become friends, O’Neil, his wife Dorothy, and Brenda. They exchange news regularly by both regular and e-mail. And they see one another at the reunions.

The next time von Tungeln attended a reunion, she took her mother, Hazel Welch Cole. Jim O’Neil brought the flag that his squad had captured and signed. She has a photograph of her mom with the flag. It occupies a sacred place in her life. It rests beside a heart-wrenching Christmas Card from 1944, pre-printed with the silhouette of a soldier in a fox-hole and the cryptic words: “Somewhere in France.” It is signed in pencil simply: “Julius Cole.”

Each year, in a solemn ceremony, the survivors ring a bell for each of the men of the 313^th who died during the preceding year. The wives of the 313^th watch it through their own dimming eyes. Some men won’t receive the honor, though. Each reunion threatens to be the last, although some of the children and grandchildren are maintaining the tradition. The brave men who crossed the Rhine and stormed the Fatherland are too old to make the trip anymore. Like Brenda von Tungeln’s dad, all that will be left soon are the memories.

            When asked what she remembers most about him, she gives an odd answer.

            “His feet,” she says. “I remember his feet.  They froze in the Ardennes and he had trouble with them all his life.”

            Then she adds, “When I was a little girl I used to rub them on a winter’s evening. They would hurt him so bad.”

The last photograph taken of Julius Cole shows him leaning against a fence at his farm looking out over his pasture. No one will ever know what he was thinking, if anything, through the pitiless fog of Alzheimer’s. In the summer of 2000, they rang the bell for him at the 313^th Infantry reunion. Never a fan for those wearisome end-of-the-year “bragging letters” or overblown obituaries, his daughter simply mentioned, in the local notices, his family, his service with the 79^th, his Purple Heart, and his Combat Infantry Badge—so cherished by those who have earned it. He would have liked that.

During his final days, along with her mother, she hardly left his bedside, often rubbing his hands the way she used to rub his feet. Sometimes they would have to help restrain him when he would choose to “not go gently.” Sometimes they had to help clean up the messy side of advanced dementia. Above all, though, they had to watch this good man waste away. Unpleasant? Maybe, but they feel no regret.

That’s simply what the women of the 313^th do.

Hazel and Jim O'Neil with the flag
Julius signed in 1944.

Postscript: The Army disbanded the 79th Division when Germany surrendered. They transferred Julius to the First Infantry Division, The Big Red One. Had events forced the invasion of Japan, anyone who has studied World War II knows what unit would have constituted the first wave and this story would likely never had been written.