Just a Soldier

William D. Cotter was twenty, enjoying fame, fortune, and girls, when some stupid son of a bitch started a war.

Few knew where the hell Korea was in the summer and fall of 1950. Those who did cared less, and virtually no one believed in the Domino Theory: “If we give an inch in South Korea, Japan will be next and then the Philippines, until we’re fighting on the docks in Seattle.” But every young man of draft and reservist age knew service was inevitable.

A few overly-motivated types signed right up to kill somebody ... anybody. But the smart ones (which included just about everybody) were trying to figure out how to avoid service...or at least get the best possible deal.

Bill was no exception. He’d been an impressionable “twelve year old” when he first heard the horror stories from returning World War Two veterans. He absorbed their accounts of the killing, maiming, and worst of all, capture and concentration camps by a heinous enemy.

“My time is coming,” he thought. He was right. When he turned thirteen in April of 1944, the war was in full swing and beginning to turn in favor of the Allies. Rommel was on the run in North Africa, and U.S. troops in the Pacific were moving on Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Corrigedor toward Tokyo.

When the draft began before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the initial age limit was forty-three. Older men were the first to the front: mostly twenty-seven to thirty-years-old, with an occasional antique like Bill’s Uncle Melvin. Deferments went to men in critical jobs, like defense work and the federal agencies, or in some cases, for men with dependent children. Uncle Melvin had not fit into any of these categories, and his eligibility was increased by the fact that he and Aunt Lee were childless. One of the oldest men conscripted at forty-three, he was stationed in the Aleutians.

As the war escalated, the government lowered the limit to forty-two, then forty, and finally, thirty-eight. Eighteen- and twenty-years-old were now in the front lines. The minimum age stayed constant at eighteen, but younger boys could enlist with parental consent. Many would, including Bill’s older brother, Ken, who was planning to join the Navy the second he turned seventeen. War was becoming a family affair for the Cotter household.

The day of Uncle Melvin’s induction was preceded by hectic preparations. Bill’s father, Ray, and Melvin’s twin brother, Norvel, made a trip to Eppinger’s in downtown Detroit, where they bought the departing hero a stiletto...a wickedly razor sharp, three-sided, nine-inch blade clearly designed for fast, efficient disembowelment. Over the handle was a brass guard with seven half-inch pointed stubs for hitting, in case stabbing didn’t finish the job.

Bill was very impressed when he saw the beautifully lethal object. Wow! Uncle Melvin’s going to be in hand-to-hand combat with a horde of crazy Japs! Prior to the big day, he stole into his father’s closet at every opportunity to hold the intended gift, his eyes glittering with boyishly macabre fascination.

The stiletto was presented to Melvin at a solemn meeting of the three brothers just before he was sworn in with nine hundred other new draftees. The men marched down Woodward Avenue to the Fort Street Railroad Depot on their way to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois. Thousands of friends, relatives, and well-wishers lined the avenue, including Norvel, Ray, and their wives.

Since the formation was in order of age, Melvin was the last man in the last brigade, marching in a one-man column seven feet behind the others, and falling farther behind with each step. Between Lee’s cooking and his father-in-law’s whiskey, he’d developed a respectable pot belly; he was obviously already winded from the longest walk he’d taken in twenty years.

Norvel watched his twin brother struggle to keep up with the others from his vantage point on the sidewalk, thinking, I’ll probably never see him again. A lump formed in his throat, and tears welled in his eyes. He couldn’t let anyone see him that way, and tried to think of a diversionary tactic.

Inspiration struck. “MELVIN!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. Melvin turned back to find his brother in the crowd. Norvel tried to think of something profound; something Melvin would remember when he was fighting for his life thousands of miles from home. He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled, “MELVIN! KEEP YOUR BOWELS OPEN!”

It may not have been sentimental, but it sure as hell broke the tension. Melvin grinned, waved, and walked on, presumably more conscious of his bowels.

Norvel’s advice must have worked: a thinner, much healthier Melvin was back in sixteen weeks for a short leave before shipping out with a battalion of Combat Engineers to the northernmost chain of the Aleutians. The lethal gift from his brothers indeed came in handy.