As a kid growing up in 1950′s small town Indiana, I was proud that my dad had fought in the big war, but I had no idea how much horror, anguish and phyical suffering he must have endured. He’s gone now, so I’ll never know the details, but a few years ago I found some disturbing news in a library book about World War II. I looked up 90th Infantry Division in the index and began going to the pages that mentioned their activity. I was stunned at the number of horrific battles they were in, at the heroism, the significance of their campaigns and at the carnage. I hate that he had to endure so much.
1Lt. Roy J. Reichart
The 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Division, put out a booklet that told the story of their march through Europe. It was rather clinical, doing little more than describing where they went and, briefly, what happened there. On one page, though, there was a backward checkmark (dad was left-handed). It was the only mark he made in the booklet, and I’ll never know why he put it there. It was at a paragraph with the heading The Jaws Close, and it read: “After Le Mans, the Division cut north in clouds of dust toward Alencon, following the Second French Armored Division and blocking to the West any effort of the German 7th Army to escape the inevitable and fast closing Falaise Trap.” Le Mans, Alencon, Falaise–these were names I heard recently while watching a program on the Military Channel about the Allies’ struggle to break out of the Normandy peninsula, and the raw footage was not pretty.
I had no idea how intense the fighting was. I had always imagined that after D-Day it was just a matter of gradually pushing the German front backward. I didn’t realize how long it took (a month, I think) just to get past the hedgerows, where the Germans threw their best fighters–frenzied paratroopers and Nazi SS fanatics–at our green soldiers, often appearing suddenly, within a few feet, blazing away with their burp guns and then disappearing again into the hedges.
The booklet called the hedgerow country “the ugly, bitter battlefield on which the Regiment was to fight some of its bloodiest battles.” I remember my dad speaking of the hedgerows. Strange as it seems now, his tone was always light, almost playful, when he described how he entertained his buddies by swearing at the Germans in their native tongue. The son of German immigrants, he would always admit with a grin that swear words were all he picked up from the “old country.” That was the only thing we learned from him about the hedgerow country. I always imagined that it was a rather jovial and somewhat respectful thing among soldiers, though they be enemies–the one advancing and the other gradually retreating, occupying positions so close that they could easily hear each other’s voices.
Normandy, of course, was only the beginning. As leader of a Ranger platoon, my father carried a rifle across Europe, from Utah Beach, through France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany and into Czechoslovakia. He only told war stories that were light or humorous. In fact, I can only think of two others. There was the time when he was in a bunker with some guys from another unit. I guess they were just hanging out, shooting the bull. A guy from my dad’s platoon came in, addressed my dad, called him “lieutenant.” The other soldiers looked at each other, and one said, “Jesus Christ, Roy, are you a lieutenant?” Because of snipers, officers didn’t display their rank on the battlefield, but I guess my dad felt kind of proud to be so easily mistaken for one of the guys. Then there was the story about trying to get some sleep in a deserted house and being awakened every hour by a cuckoo clock, until he grabbed his forty-five, opened the door, and blasted the thing off the wall.
I feel kind of guilty about having so many questions now, having never really made the effort to find out details when he was alive. As a kid, my world was a simple one, and I was busy thinking about myself. As an adult and war veteran myself, I was still self involved, but then I also had my own family and career to occupy my mind. On the other hand, if I had the chance to ask him more detailed questions about his experiences in the war, I still probably wouldn’t get much out of him. Well, there was one other time. The Christmas season after my mom died, I was sitting with him and some of his friends at the bar of his favorite tavern, when he mentioned that it was the worst Christmas he’d had since 1944. Through all the wonderful Christmases he gave my sister and me, there was never a hint of reflection back to that horrible time during the Battle of the Bulge when our troops faced not only a desperate, fanatical German counterattack but probably the worst weather of the century–nights so cold that troops slept in snowbanks to keep warm.
Only recently have I thought about the demons my father must have lived with. I had nightmares, gradually diminishing, for 15 or 20 years after returning from Vietnam, and I wasn’t even in the infantry. I was on a psyops field team for half of my tour, and there were times when, standing guard on a night so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, I thought about a human wave attack, getting over run, the possibility of having to engage in hand-to-hand combat… It never happened. And yet years later, I’d have a dream about fighting Viet Cong or North Vietnamese troops in my back yard or a supermarket parking lot. I guess there’s something primal about that kind of experience that sort of sets you apart from most of the population–the whole universal soldier thing. But what must my father’s dreams have been like?
Here, finally, is what I’m getting at. Most of the men my dad’s age in Kendallville fought in that war. You would never know it. They just went about their business and raised their families. They were my friends’ fathers, the grocer, the pharmacist, the plumber, the mailman and milkman. I don’t think it was necessarily out of humility or modesty that they didn’t talk about it much or reveal many details. I think they were afraid to open the gate. Why do I think that? Well, sometimes I cry when I see actual footage of the Vietnam War on TV, and I don’t know why–I don’t have anything dark locked behind a door in my mind. Hell, I’m happy tell war stories if anybody will listen, though they aren’t very exciting. But combat veterans have lots of doors locked up tight in the deepest, darkest regions of their psyche.
Maybe I cry for the lost innocence of so many young guys. I wasn’t a hero, I wasn’t an infantryman, I wasn’t even a very good soldier, but I sure knew a lot of them. They were just like me, going in. When they arrived back at the Long Binh Replacement Depot a year later, many were more like my father. Our troops who fought in Vietnam were as good as any this country has ever produced. From scared, apple-cheeked innocence to hardened veteran, so much changed in such a short time.
Even today, the survivors return with their worldly wisdom and lost innocence, feeling at first more kinship to a Roman soldier or Greek warrior than to their friends and neighbors.
They just feel different, and they’re not sure they’ll ever feel like they truly belong in normal society again. Eventually, most will shake the dust of Iraq and Afghanistan from their feet and go about their business, but it will be a long time before their war is over. They don’t expect us to understand–how could we?–but they will perk right up if they hear words of sincere appreciation. They don’t require it; that was never part of the bargain. But it would be nice.
