A Lifetime of Days

A rigid partner of sleep, death crouches behind every hour, every minute, and every second.  The fear of dying creeps along the folds of any combat soldier’s brain; and with a grip of enormous strength, it continues to squeeze the intestines and plunders the thoughts of innocent youth.

Day after day, the thoughts are there.  The young bodies in third platoon’s gun were charred and mangled.  The crew, in Sergeant Wade King’s remaining gun, witnessed the entire demise of their brothers.  After the first round from the Panzer Mark IV struck the other howitzer, Sergeant King had ordered his crew to pull off of their flank to supposedly draw the Panzer’s fire.  The first round had only disabled the gun, entering the engine compartment and exiting along the rear bogey wheel throwing the right track.  The panzer fired again.

The second round found its mark, striking the ammo that lined the fighting compartment.  The eruption was enormous.  Sergeant King refused to allow another round to be fired at the enemy tank screaming that the ammo count was low and the enemy count was reported as high.  The Panzer’s MG 34 machine gun raked the burning hull of the howitzer.

During battle assessment, R.Z. had seen the burned gun of third platoon.  The terror of dying danced wildly in his brain.  He remembered the Panzer turning toward his own gun at less than seventy-five yards away and the percussion of the round leaving the barrel of the Nazi tank.  The heat of the round and the shower of sparks burned R.Z.’s face as the round skimmed the top of driver’s compartment nearly decapitating Sergeant Grigg.  Danny had revved the gasoline engine, released the clutch, and shoved the right steering stick forward as he pulled back on the left; no secondary rounds were fired from the attacking panzer.  The Germans were gone as quickly as they had arrived; only freshly born and freshly dead combat veterans remained.

Talk of “C” battery was still floating around the guns in the battalion.  The thought of the Captain Harrison’s men being trapped in a rocky depression on the Allied front horrified the other crews.  Word had spread that the Germans machine-gunned soldiers as they lay huddled behind rocks and cactus patches.  After the position was completely overrun, an enemy tank commander rounded up a handful of men from “C” battery.  Within hours, an entire battery was gone.   

Now, sitting on the sub-floor of the fighting compartment, R.Z. covered the cherry of his cigarette with his hand and listened to the quiet that lay about him.  The 27th Armored Field Artillery had limped from Tebourba and regrouped around the edge of a huge depression on the outskirts of Medjez-el-Bab.  The Germans would not stand toe-to-toe with the allies.  Supplies were crucial, and they knew that the Americans were young and inexperienced; however, the enemy abandoned an attack on the Medjez-el-Bab village, leaving the Allies scratching their heads.

The night was increasingly cold, and shelter from the wind and rain could only be found on under the gun or down in a covered foxhole.  No one talked.  The crew seemed to be in disbelief.  R.Z. felt small, lost in the vast open space; the fear of death thundering his brain.  Chills crawled across his skin, and his nerves jumped and quivered as his body pleaded for rest.