Trenches


The smell of it got to you after a while; the smell of dead bodies, rotting flesh, gun powder, and remnants of poison gas. Those were the fumes and reeking scents which invaded my nostrils constantly. The sounds could be just as offensive; explosions, blood curdling screams, the rapid redundancy of the automatic rifles, and hearing your comrades crying with depression over the utter disbelief of the fact that they may never see their families ever again. Those were the different elements which I faced every waking moment of every day. Me and the guys in the 257 infantry ground unit didn't get scared of the explosions anymore; it was the silence that scared us the most. When everything was serene, that's when true fear set in.

People out in the world have never experienced true loss until they held their best friends head in their lap and listened to his last dying words and his death wish, I've been there. They've never had a real solitary feeling until they were out in the bush alone for three weeks with two canteens full of water, all the while just trying to find your unit again, I've been there too. I have never doubted my thoughts or reasons for signing up for this duty either; I am here to fight for my country and I know that I may very well die out here. That is the one reason why I am glad that I have never married, and that is the one reason why I am glad that my mother passed away three years ago and that my father abandoned me. I won't have a home or a family to go back to if I survive this nightmare; my section of twelve men is my family. Robby, Joseph, Billy, B.J., Louis, Ryan, Brad, Anthony, Jimmy, Christopher, and Scott, these are my brothers, these are the other eleven parts of four section from the 257th infantry unit. Those are the eleven men I would gladly take a bullet for.

Before this war started our section had fifteen men in it there was Corey, Mike, and Stevie; all of whom are deceased Stevie is the man who's head I held in my lap with tears forming tiny streams down my face as I listened to his dying words, and that's when I promised to make it back to America to be there for his sister. Steve born 1920, three years before the supposed "war to end all wars" started, died at the age of 23 in the year of 1943, he died when the opposing forces threw a grenade into our trench. Everyone except for Stevie got out in time, the grenade blew up and there was an abundance of shrapnel from the explosion which ripped into Stevies back, legs, neck, and sides. His blood formed puddles in the bottom of the trench. Stevie choked on his words, almost unable to get them out as I blinked back tears. The last thing he said was "Take care of Alice when I'm gone." After the words were out of his mouth and I had nodded I felt his body go limp and I could no longer hold back the tears; they heaved out from my body with violent sobs.

Now it is April of 1944 seven months after Stevie was killed. My unit has been tasked to a reconnaissance mission outside of Warsaw; we are searching for one of many extermination camps put into place to kill Jewish persons. As we stalk through the bombed out town, we see limbs of dead people lying around. Jimmy looks as though he will be sick but he does his best at holding it in for the slightest sound may alert near by enemies.

In a nearby heap of rubble a rat runs out from under some stones and in the process knocks loose some others. Underneath the stones is the head of a dead man; at this moment the gruesome image is too much for Jimmy to handle and he vomits all over the back of the person in front of him. Suddenly, like the instantaneous commencement of a blizzard, AK-47 rounds start flying by us from all directions. We all run for cover but Brad gets shot in the upper leg, just above his knee, and before he hits the ground, another few rounds rip through his chest and stomach. Four section has been cut down to eleven. A grenade explodes about fifteen feet behind us and we all cover our heads. BJ throws a grenade up ahead and we hear screams mixed in with the explosion which follows, but there were still approximately five more Germans out there, I estimated by the sounds of the rifles.

I peeked around a large stone too check if I could see any of the monsters that called themselves human. Any man who would be cruel enough to follow such a mongrel of a man such as Hitler, doesn't deserve the dignity to be called human. I saw four soldiers nearby an old stable; therefore I took action and launched a grenade in the air towards that general direction. I heard two screams so I assumed that there were only two beings left. I stood up and turned to fight, but before I could get any shots fired at them I felt a heat in my right shoulder and my left knee. I fell to the ground and Louis pulled me to the side behind the rubble heap.

"Oh my God, Travis, can you hear me?" Louis asked me in desperation his face would be as white as a sheet if it weren't for the dirt, dust, blood, and camouflage stick. His face was wide eyed and tears of fear were forming.

"Yes I can hear you, you ugly..." my voice trailed off into nothing and all I could sense was darkness; a soft, quiet darkness. When I awoke I was in the closest MASH unit of this region. I looked at my left leg only to discover that it was gone from the knee down. "What the hell, holy shit. Nurse what did you do with my leg? Where the hell is it?" I was yelling at her uncontrollably with desperation. "How can I fight in the war with only one freakin' leg?"

"Sir, sir, let go of me. The damage done to your leg was far to severe. We couldn't save your leg so we amputated it." The nurse replied to me as she walked away with her head up in the clouds. She was what me and the guys in my section called wirgins; people who hadn't seen, first hand, what war was about, someone who was never out on the front lines of a battle.

"Shouldn't you people have waited until I was awake so you could have asked me if I wanted my leg cut off of me forever?" I asked, and I have never asked such a stupid question in my life.

"Sir with all do respect, but if we had of waited for you to wake up, you would have died. So you see, it was either amputate your leg or have you die. Would you rather be dead?" At that I just rolled over in my bed to turn my back to her, and she walked away.

Two weeks later, after all of my physical therapy and recovering time, I was given a discharge from the war, and they sent me home. I went back to my non-existent home. When I arrived at my hometown, there would be no banners, no welcome back parade. The best thing I could hope for was a stranger coming over and asking me countless questions about my time over in Europe.

Sure enough, when I arrived at the airport there was no precession of people lined up to greet me at the gate. In fact, the only person to greet me was the security guard, who frisked me. As I wheeled my way over to baggage claim I began to think about my promise to Stevie, and I decided to call his sister Alice once I had arrived at my hotel. I would have to stay at the hotel until I had found a decent place to live.

When I arrived at the hotel I went up to the desk and checked in, when the basic "hellos" were done with I didn't say much at all using the shortest possible answers for the clerks questions. After I was finished at the lobby I went to my room, there I propped myself up and lied down on the bed.

At this time my tears suddenly ripped out of my eyes and flooded my face. I had come inches away from death and had seen four of my friends, brothers, killed. I called room service and ordered a 40 oz. bottle of whiskey. That's when I remembered about Alice, so I opened up the desk drawer grabbed the phone book and I called Alice Jones.

"Hello... yes, Alice? My name is Travis McClellan. ...Yes I was a friend of your brother, Steve."

As I talked to her, which I did for a few hours, a feeling of gratitude fell over me. I was happy to have known the man they called Stevie Andrew Jones, and I knew that he would be with me, and his sister, wherever we may go. I also knew that he would be waiting for us on the other side of this life.



The End