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Pvt Charles Durning, June 6, 1944

My feet are wet
Trapped in leather boots
I wiggle my toes and know
They are an ugly fish-belly white
Puckered up and creased.
Over the side of the boat
Is the slate grey sea
Boiled up by wind.
Beside me Anderson is going green,
And I try to move away from him,
Knowing he's about to lose the
Heavy breakfast we were treated to
That morning by the cooks.
Bacon, real eggs, hash browns
Everything I hadn't seen since
I left home, but I was too nervous
To eat. Normally we just get
powdered green eggs and spam
But since this was the invasion;
Last dinner for the condemned.
All I'd been able to stand
Was bitter black coffee
And a few strips of pork.
Carson pulls open his shirt and shows
the Hawaiin Hula girl tie he bought
On leave in New York city
Last Spring and a lifetime ago
We all chuckle in spite of ourselves
As the satin grass skirt shimmies
On the playful polynesian.
Weirzbowski mumbles in latin
To the other side of me, kissing
The cross he's worn ever day since basic.
I hold my M-1 Garand rifle in it's plastic
Hoping it will ward off evil.
Anderson finally loses it
And my feet grow warm for a moment.
"One minute check!" The sarge barks,
And the French beaches loom to greet us
Anderson slugs some water to lose the taste
And I try to stop thinking
I put steel around my heart,
To protect my mother and my sisters
No time for sentiments
No time for kindness
"See you apes on the beach!"
The boat's drawbridge drops to the surf
And Hell rushes in .
My legs are pumping before I even know it
Driving me into the cold water
I slug past the pounding waves
Trying to get beyond burning tracers
That cut the lightning sky
Around me, my platoon mates are harvested.
Anderson's head explodes in a fine red mist
And I'm suddenly wearing his soul on my pants.
My first thought is relief.
I met Anderson back in Fort Bragg, Texas
Four months ago. He let me lean on him
Gave me a hand up the climbing walls
Bummed me cigarettes when my supply ran low
And I was relieved the Nazi bullet took him
And not me.
Then guilt explodes, but I've no chance to react
I'm still moving, hustling up the beach
I dodge the bullets as a boxer feints away from punches
I glance at a horror coming towards me
A not-man with his jaw blasted free
Arm cut off and bleeding at the elbow
And a hula girl tie soaked in blood.
My feet finally catching blessed dry sand
I roar up the beach, bullets digging around me
cutting sand, bone, flesh
I trip, tumble, up and going again,
Weirzbowski and I are running side by side
His calm is amazing, a Polish avenging angel.
He picks his shots, makes his enemy bleed
For his country and for himself.
My M-1 Garand is gone
I lost it back on the beach, but don't remember where
Weirzbowski puts his precious rifle to his shoulder
And I fight black jealousy and the urge
To rip it from his hands.
I get to the sheer rock walls of the beach head
And will myself up them, fingers bloody as I drag
Hand over hand up towards a pillbox turret.
I clear the twenty foot cliff which feels like a mile
And am struck in the face by a rock splinter
Dug up by a heavy bullet.
My face is sliding off,
I have to hold it with one hand
To trap my eyeball.
There on the cliff I find a young german soldier,
His baby blue eyes wide in panic
But I don't see anything else except
He has a gun
I tackle him at the belly
Before he knows I?m there
My fists swinging
I knock the sense from him
I grab at a rock
He looks up just as I break his porcelain face
I keep pounding
And pounding
And pounding
And pounding
The sticky gore stains my hands
Stains the gun
Before I can snatch the renegade thought
A crying German mother claws at my iron heart
As the light steals from his eyes.
I seize the rifle and charge out
Leaving a body and a childhood behind.
Though of German descent,
The rifle still works the same
And I lean on the trigger
Cutting down these children
Just like me
Just like I was
I will cry for their loss later
When I am old.