“What has given you life? What thing has kept you alive?” “The Fatherland!” we yelled. “And your great Fatherland is in need. The Poles have insulted us for the last time. This is the last time I will be teaching you so, as a favor to an old man, GO ENLIST!” The bell rang for the last time but few of my class rushed out as usual. Each wanted to know if the other was going to join up. My best friend, Paul Dietreich, walked over and sat down at my table. “So are you going to join up?” he asked. “I don’t know. I suppose it would be better to enlist now and maybe have a chance at making NCO, instead of being conscripted as a private later. But everyone’s saying ‘It’s sure to be a short war, no one’ll let The Great War happen again.’ I guess I’ll probably do what everyone else does. Go with the flow, yah know?” “Yeah,” he replied, “well my old man’s making me join. He hates what the traitors did to us at Versailles and is a member of the Volksturrm himself. I don’t really know if I want to go. But I got’s nothing better do, neh!” People slowly started drifting out of the assembly. Each asking the other, “You’re going to join, right?” or some like facsimile. I could sense the attitude as I walked out and it was reflected by the long line by the enlistment booth. Anyone that was anyone was joining up, it was like a rite of passage. I still don’t know why I did it. I hadn’t really intended to sign up but my legs just seemed to carry me over. No one seemed to be talking in the line. I guess they were all too nervous. As we slowly filed forward thoughts continued to filter though my head, “Would I be a coward? Would I just run away from the enemy?” but the most vivid, and horrid, though was, “Will I die? Will I be coming back?” Eventually it was my turn. They asked me a few questions and then sent me to another line where I was checked by doctors. I was worried that I wouldn’t be accepted since my body had a few defects. However my fears were assuaged when the doctor told me they didn’t require “Grade A Nazis” any more. All they really required was a warm body and the ability to fire a rifle. The most memorable part of the whole enlistment process was the oath. Back in the days of the Weimar Republic army men had to take an oath to the Republic. Even back in the days of the Kaiser it had been both to him and to the Fatherland. But this new oath was to Adolf Hitler and him alone. Our Fuhrer was to take precedence over everything else, even the Fatherland. What blasphemy was this? But we all ended up saying it, to say no was to accept a life of ridicule by the Gestapo and other sometimes more sinister things. Finally they gave me a uniform and told me to report to the training barracks the following morning. I put my uniform on and walked home feeling smugly superior. Yesiree my father would be proud, little Johnny had joined the Army. I walked in and yelled, “Hello,” put my school bag down and strolled in, expecting to be congratulated. I heard a muffled, “Hello Johnny,” and knew it was my mother, “I’m in the kitchen!” I strolled towards her voice, looking at the picture of Hitler my father had put up by our hearth. We had never been real Nazis. We did just enough to satisfy the Gestapo yet little enough so we wouldn’t be recognized. My father never could quite stomach the hate Hitler exemplified, after all he had never really cared about politics. All he ever really wanted was a nice profit margin at our tavern. I walked to the archway between our living room and the kitchen and leaned up against it. My mother was bustling over a boiling pot of goulash, throwing in a dash of this, a drop of that. Stirring, tasting, stirring again so it would be perfect for the customers. Mother’s goulash was known throughout Dresden for its unique, and wonderful, taste. She looked up from her work and just about fainted upon seeing me. I rushed forward to catch her fall but luckily she had righted herself before I got there. Now she was simply bent over weeping, crying “Oh my little baby,” until it was but a faint echo. I asked her, “Mother, what’s wrong?” even though I already knew the answer. I hadn’t thought she would react like this. War was supposed to be glorious, at least that’s what Mr. Luck had always said. He had talked about how our parents would be so proud. No one had ever mentioned that they might be sad, even delirious, upon simply seeing you in uniform. Honor, Valor, Triumph, that was the warrior’s code, not this...sorrow. My father walked in and saw my mother in a crying heap at my feet. He looked up to discover what had caused this incongruency and, upon seeing me in uniform, broke down in tears as well. But these weren’t the tears my mother had cried, they were tears of joy. “My son! Oh my son!” he said, “I am so very proud. You left this morning a boy, you return a man. Come, come to the tavern m’boy! Your mother will feel fine in a while. Now tell me all about it. What division did you join? I see you joined the army but what branch? Do you want to be in the cavalry? The Artillery? That’s where all the officers come from yah know.” We slowly made our way into the tavern, my father asking questions the whole time, without giving me even a second to answer. The rest of that night was a blur of questions and congratulations by the tavern regulars. People I had never met came up to me and wished me luck. When I woke the next morning I found that my mother had pulled herself together and had packed up what I would need. I guess I had had a bit too many congratulatory toasts the night before as I had a pounding headache. After breakfast I walked out the door with my crying parents waving goodbye. I felt like I was on top of the world. This view was soon to change. I won’t say too much about boot camp, only that I learned two very important things. 1. I am not all that. In fact I am a nothing, a supernumeracy, I do not deserve to breathe the same air as combat tested troops. 2. War is not honorable, valorous nor glorious. Instead Churchill got it right in saying, “All I have to promise are blood, tears and sweat.” Besides the typical skills learned in boot camp I came out with one other thing, a severe dislike of the army. I suppose just about every footslogger since Caesar has felt the same way, it is our one fundamental right. The right to gripe, it can not be taken away and it will never disappear. When I finally graduated, I was assigned to a main line mechanized infantry unit. Tanks and aeroplanes might be recognized by the press but at least 90% of the actual soldiers are infantry. We are the saw, everyone else is just trying to get us there. (Of course, we’ll take a tank or a bomber any time we can get one. They’re awful useful in a pinch but can be devastated without their accompanying infantry.) They shipped out my whole class to be dispersed amongst the veterans of the Polish campaign. I was assigned to C company, 3rd regiment, 2nd battalion 8th mechanized division assigned to Army Group A (Gen. Von Rundstedt) and was in store for a rude shock upon meeting my new comrades. Our company illustrated the basic difference between basic training and the regular army, only more so than I had ever imagined. These guys were the most laid back people I have ever met. We showed up looking all crisp and clean and discovered that our company commander was wearing civilian’s clothes. We saluted just about everyone until we figured out that no one saluted in this unit, it just didn’t happen. Generally they treated us with indifference since we were not yet tested in battle and therefore couldn’t be trusted. However, they did relieve us of several “useless” things we “didn’t” need. Personally I was liberated of all my cigarettes and chocolate bars. We sat along the French frontier for several months during the aptly named “Phony War” as the British labeled it. We practiced a little but couldn’t try any major maneuvers because of the need for fuel and ammo conservation. One day, about mid August, my friend Willi Kurz and I were engaged in a late night bull session in the enlisted men’s club. There had been lots of scuttlebutt floating around about when and where we would attack. But Willi had something special, his dad was a general. He could have had some soft job as a general’s this or that (a true supernumeracy.) Instead he had chosen to be a private, in the infantry because his honor wouldn’t let him cheat. (He died during the French campaign. Shows where honor’ll get you. But I guess it depends on how you look at it.) Anyway, he was telling us all that the battle was imminent and our division would be striking through the Ardennes. This was a big surprise to me since every Prussian invader in history had attacked across the plains of Flanders. I had never heard of anyone attacking through the Ardennes and I’m kinda a history buff. Naturally there’s a reason for this, the Ardennes is on of the most densely wooded, least tracked parts of our entire northeastern frontier. It was sheer suicide to attack there. But then again I’m just a lowly private and am not allowed to have opinions. Finally on the 10th of May we received our orders. Army Group B had been feinting to the north to draw the Allied forces into Belgium and Holland. Army group A (that’s me) would strike the main blow through the Ardennes thereby encircling the Allied armies for destruction. With their supply lines cut and communications in a shambles the allies would be easily destroyed, leaving Paris for the taking, exactly how Willi had described it. My division’s role would be to follow right behind the spearhead of panzers, mopping up any resistance the tanks left behind. However, our main role was as a fire brigade should our panzers encounter an obstacle that required infantry, such as a river crossing or heavily entrenched antitank guns. An infantry division is much better than any tank that will ever be devised at destroying dug in anti-tank guns and their accompanying infantry. No matter how much technology advances there will always be a place for the infantry. We attacked on the 12th of May to light resistance. The few French troops along our sector were very demoralized. The were also of very low quality since the French were using their best troops to man the Maginot Line, which we were outflanking. We picked up many prisoners which we sent to the rear. Our tanks roared forward through less and less resistance until they hit the river Meuse. Here we discovered that the Allied armies had fallen back to a river line. No bother, our instructors had taught us that a river line was the most unstable situation an army can encounter. As we were soon to learn, this is true for an army as a whole but for the individual soldiers assaulting the line it is the worst possible situation. Since tanks can’t cross a river until a pontoon bridge is built and engineers require at least relative safety to build one, the infantry would have to secure a bridgehead. Our division was split into regiments to attempt a mass crossing of the river at many different points. The regiment that had the most success would have the reserves thrown in to further secure the bridgehead. My regiment would be crossing a point on the river where there had been a wire ferry until the allies blew it up. At this point there was a sidebar extending from both ends of the river. This would shorten the distance we would have to paddle across but it would also give the French a perfect chance to shoot to our bodys’ silhouetted by the full moon. My company would lead the attack with A company, B company would be in the reserve. Around midnight we set out in one big mass so we could establish a large bridgehead before the French discovered us. Apparently someone heard or saw us and hot a flare to illuminate the targets. I heard yells of “l’ennemie!” and started paddling faster. We were using collapsible cloth boats and our rifle butts for ores, consequently no matter how fast we paddled we continued to just creep along. Tracers flew amongst us, I heard men cry out in agony, crying for their mothers. Now artillery shells started to come in with resounding booms. My head was slammed backwards by a piece of shrapnel, luckily my helmet stopped it. I heard grown men screaming for their mothers, my best friend from boot dove out of his boat, a coward I assumed. Now I finally had learned what war really is. It is neither glory nor sorrow, it is a trial of men. Those who happen to triumph in battle are not necessarily the winners. It is those who faced death and stared it right back in the face who won. They might not even have survived but they faced the trial and did not turn away, they are triumphant.