So Far from Story Street

Our movement brought us back into region of La Ferté. We were to fight off the boches in a place called Belleau Wood, and were ordered to pack up and take our positions on the front line on the 7th at midnight. We went back to rest at 3:30 the next day. On the 8th the orders came to do patrol work--which we carried out. A Forest of Horror is what we experienced. The Marines who preceded us faced off with the boches here to defend the capital. Such an awful fight had gone on here, we could see: the trees were all shot to pieces, the foliage destroyed. Strewn everywhere, all around us, we saw the remains of their hard-won battles: pieces of equipment --both American and German artillery--including rifles and even machine guns, ammunition, and mess kits. Worst of all were the unburied bodies, including severed limbs that were found here and there and everywhere. The putrid smell of death and decay around us made the air feel heavy. This reconnaissance mission brought us to the threshold of death. What really spooked us was what we discovered in the clearing on the other side of the woods, in front of Bouresches. We were startled to find ourselves surrounded by boches! There must have been twenty there, all dead or near dead, some sprawling on the ground, others hanging in trees or on the wires, where our shells had probably blown them. The forest would remain haunted by these lost souls, we thought. Just as we emerged out of the shallow trenches, the boches began to shell the town. Believe me, I was frightened to beat hell. When we tried to pull out of the area that night, they began to blast the road we were walking on --Paris Road, it was called. The bombardment from the German artillery went on and on, relentlessly, and it came with mustard gas. I sent out prayers for my life and for the lives of the boys at my side during each day of the month of July. We lost a few men on the 10th when we fulfilled orders to move up to the front line. We could not even take a moment to mourn these lost brothers, and there is barely time or safety to bury our dead. The cruelty of war is bigger than all of us, and we have to harden our hearts. Is the Lord even listening? I was taught that it is not for me to question Him, so even writing this feels like sacrilege. New ways of understanding God must be brought forth, otherwise our faith is simply shattered. A war cannot possibly be any more godforsaken than what we have come to witness in the Bois de Belleau. **************** Orders came to go over the tops on the 18th, the first day of the next fight. It was fierce: man-to-man combat with the bayonet. Here, we were fighting at Bouresches. The town of Torcy and the Bouresches railway station were eventually taken by our regiment along with the 103rd, without combat. It was not until we got to Hill #193 and Bouresches Wood that we encountered the boches. And they fought back, they did! We were forced all the way back to Belleau Wood. During these hours, which seemed to stretch on for days, I stayed as close as possible to Stanis, because I felt that this was my closest connection to my family. And if this were the time for me to greet Saint Peter, then I would have someone there to escort me to the pearly Gates. When a German soldier charged directly toward me--the look of fear in his eyes, reflecting mine--I had to lunge toward him with my bayonet. It was going to be either me or him, and I had to fight for my hide. I will never forget that sound of him hitting the ground. The next thing I knew, Roland was down. It was the gas. I was told that he had tried to `walk it off' but was stricken with too many of the symptoms of gas poisoning: the burning eyes and throat, the strained breathing and coughing, vomiting, dry mouth and tongue, weak legs, violet red face, and blue ears and fingernails. And then he was rushed off to the field hospital as a `casualty'. I did not get the chance to see him before he was taken away. On the 28th, there was relief from this hellish place. The Germans were in retreat. I never thought this day would come, when we were given orders to hike back to La Ferté where we were billeted until further notice. The Marne, so inviting, offered us place in which to bathe. Later we learned that this ordeal, which lasted eight days, meant that the Yankee Division had just made the first real advance --of seventeen kilometers-- by an American division as a unit. But in my heart I left a great loss. There is no way, now, to reclaim my innocence; and though I was thrust into this maelstrom of destruction, there is no possibility of redemption for my deeds. And I felt: this war has drawn into its center the power and the pride of all the Earth.