Chapter 50
There is a lull in the artillery barrage while the
guns seem to shift gears. And in the comparative quiet,
the small arms fire to the front of you is
even louder and more intense. Attack. Defense. Counterattack.
mmmRetreat. Pursuit.
Just words, words, words. Put them all together and what
do they add up to? A soldier. An anonymous guy
in a uniform. A body without a face. A number
without a name. A statistic coming to grips with the
enemy. A card in an index file bleeding to death.
G.I. Joe, they call him. "G.I. Joe," they say, as
if it were something cute and cunning to be smiled
at patronizingly. Sure, lots of laffs. Plenty of jokes. The
grinning kid. That's Joe. Ain't he a fetching little fella?
If all there was to it was just washing his
socks in his helmet. If all there was to it
was just spending a night in a foxhole. If all
there was to it was just eating the same tasteless
rations out of a can three times a day. If
all there was to it was just swinging down a
road while the Public Relations Office photographer took
mmmhis picture --
then he would believe the people who say how magnificent
he is and how full of good humor he remains
and how he is conducting himself through a dirty business
with the dignity and courage and laughter of an American.
But it's more than just that. It's a sharp cry
held in a muted throat. It's seeing your buddy shot
and listening to him breathe and watching his final movements.
It's never having quite enough of everything at one time.
If you've got a cigarette, nobody's got a match. If
you've got a match, nobody's got a cigarette. If you
have a razor, you find that your blades are unusable.
If you have good blades, someone has borrowed your razor.
If you have both razor and blades you discover that
you have lost your shaving cream. And if you have
all three you're told there's no water for shaving anyway.
It's a compound fracture of the illusions, an intimate hell
where a corpse dances on a firelit wall, a lonely
night that sobs itself to sleep, a demented hunchback babbling
to himself in the dark, a tuneless piano with half
of its keys missing, a blind man lost between stars
on his way to God, a wild, shrieking ride on
a runaway nightmare, a spirit perpetually sagging a half mast.
Someday they'll put up a big monument to it in
memory of those boys who fell during the course of
its being, and it will be made of marble with
bronze statuary and a high-sounding inscription cut into the sides.
But if Joe had has way, he'd tear it down
and melt the statues and let the marble crumble under
indignant sledges. Oh, yes -- he'd put up a war monument
all right. It would be a little plot of ground
in the middle of the main drag, fenced in by
barbed wire, and in the center of it there would
be a drainage ditch dug with a pole over it
and a crudely lettered sign saying "Latrine." And all the
Joes would come and urinate in it and empty their
bowels in it and throw garbage in it and fill
it with red liquid that looks like blood. And people
would watch it flowing like a public fountain and they
would smell it and they would be reminded of war.
But you can't submerge tragedy
that takes lessons in swimming.
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