The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-11-10
'Our Doings Rapidly
Become Myth"
BY DUNCAN ROWE
American Field Service Ambulance Driver
italy

Italy
There's been little time for writing these
days Here the earth in revulsion has belched
forth its bitter response to descending shells;
here the ancient cultivated olive groves have
been shredded n d splintered by shrapnel
bursts until they look like wretched, whip
ped, defeated forest, grotesque. destroyed,
dead Here trucks and tanks thrust their ugly
shouts from under their green and brown bur-
lar camouflage netting. Sometimes there are
the rapid bursts of score or so OF mortars
covering an area, or the terrible chatter OF
a Spandu-and always someone has got his;
perhaps you carry him in.
Under the darkness of night the long con-
voys bring up rations, ammo and men, truck
after truck of troops all brassed up, ready to
GO in; then they get out and start those end
less single columns that wind increasingly on
to the forward and assault posts; many mutter
when they go past an ambulance: The meat
wagon; hope l don't come back in that"
The whine and crash of brutal shells; brutal
because of what shrapnel is and what it does.
The deep gnawing cold fear that grows within,
whose only antidote may be peace. The days
of intense work, odd, unpalatable meals; the
mere frequent weight of ennui and pettiness.
Towns are merely crushed rubble; seems
to be the order for all towns. Depopulated,
except for few struggling, ragged people
always carrying tin in which they put the
bits of bread, soup, hash that the soldiers
don't eat Foolish, horrible, inconsequential
things, probably, for those to whom this is
all an abstract far-off drama - for those
dreaming of the brave world that is to
be evoked from it.
But, then, back bit from the forward
areas; back to that nebulous area of supply
dumps, hospitals, fighter airfields, workshops,
and the maze of interlacing routes and roads.
Here work approaches factory regularity
and danger is only in proportion to enemy
air strength War is already something else
here. Recreation is fairly regular - cricket,
baseball volley ball, outdoor movies; parlor
talks with civilians if one has friends and if
there is city-the museums, historic places,
army shows, wine shops, brothels, all attract
their quota of troops. Here one can eat, sleep,
and work in moderate comfort.
Then back further to the base areas and
ports. Here war is only busy industry.
Good billets, shiny offices in the requisi-
toned buildings, monotcnous work, COM
Portable apartments TequisitioneO, plenty
of entertainment, liquor, food approaching
luxury, a moderate interest in the war.
Plenty Of army people here working 'Tog
ging'' army goods in the black market.
The army, like civil society. has its
stratif cations of class, its diversity Of in
terests, it's climbers, its profiteers, its crimi-
nails, its very, very vague unity, its apparent
sitting of individuality.
Then back over those fierce battle points
Casino, Enfidaville, Mareth, Alamein; and
thousand never to be known m n
sectors. Ternoli Gambetesa Wad-Zam-
Zan-their names are legion. The appalling
silence there where before all was thunder.
The emptiness, the hollowness. the vacuity,
where before all teemed with thousands Of
men, vehicles, planes, guns, and the inter
twined completely of movement Only
few unsalvaged wrecked trucks remain sink
ing in the ground; few bomb craters that
the earth is rapidly swallowing. And the
battle has already become fuzzy memory
to be argued over ale pots. There remains
certain nostalgia for the troops involved,
as war songs testify in later years.
And yet, paradoxically, men under battle
conditions can be unqualifiedly generous
and at m heroic-though it is not
common nor dishonorable to be fearful and
cowardly. Stripped of possessions reputation,
invested with soldiers anonymity, the man
who helps another who suddenly needs him,
who waits in trench or runs across field
to meet his death, exceeds the civilian man
and is rebuke to those who fear death. But
change is constant, and memory is short, and
al. of our doings rapidly become myth, as the
longs of our like always have and always
shall. Christian Science Monitor.
Ut