The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1946-08-01

! Oh CIl6 GOVeIn-
ment's dirty scrap metal deal with
Tokyo:
The story of that youngster is one
of many thousands similar ones
! but when you know someone to
whom our scrap was returned with
interest, then the whole picture
takes on an added significance.
Lets call him Bud, since that was
! his name. He used to come thun-
/ dering in our back door at odd hours
/ of the day and night in his years in
! Woodland Way and later on at high
school He was always hungry and
his first target was the refrigerator,
from whose depths he would pro-
duce a couple of raw carrots and,
munching happily, set upon his sec
ond objective, the record player,
3 He was tall youngster with a
shock of unruly wavy blond hair,
an engaging face with long lashed
blue eyes and nice teeth, an ability
for confusing the English language
+ that amounted to genius and all the
gangly charm of an amiable and
slew-footed St. Bernard pup. We
were devoted to him.
We nursed him through his var
ious troubles at school and through
his first broken heart. No one ever
suffered in the history of the world
as Bud did then-except all the
other youngsters whose hearts are
broken between sixteen and seven
teen.
In the second year of the war his
family moved to New York-their
original homeland shortly there
after our Bud had enlisted in the
Navy Ali TIE boys were scattered
at that point and for entirely too
long we lost track of Bud. Finally
things began popping in the Pacific
and months later a letter came in
the familiar handwriting from a
West Coast hospital. 1t was brief
he had been there for two months,
seriously wounded, and had a long
stretch of disqualification ahead.
Sorry cannot disclose nature of
wounds Tired-write and tell me
all about everybody in the old gang.
Bye now"
Packages sent to the hospital were
returned as long as six months la
ter battered and decomposed hav-
ing been everywhere in the United
States except the West Coast. There
came another period of no news and
finally in New York City the fol-
lowing summer l found him.
He came to call on me one scorch-
ing hot evening at the apartment of
friends close to the Hudson. He was
thin and white and limping badly.
His eyes looked very tired and my
friends were astounded to know that
he was only twenty years old. He
was discharged from the Navy,
working with an electronics firm and
going to night classes at N. Y. U.
Sitting on the roof garden of the
apartment house, with the ships
riding at anchor in the river, the
lights of the Triborough bridge
lying like a jewelled chain to the
east and the George Washington
Bridge suspended over the Hudson
to the north of us, we heard Buds
story.
Life in the Navy had been fine
"a couple of harmless trips to
Oran, which he enjoyed, and a run
to Australia, where he wouldn't
mind spending the rest of his life.
Then the big push in the Pacific and
finally Bougainville, where Bud,
complete with some Navy range
finding equipment, hit the beach
with the first wave of Marines.
Jap fire was concentrated and
intense. With ten Marines who
made it ashore at one particular
point, Bud huddled behind a sand
bunker, Jap bullets making a solid
curtain just above their heads. Off
shore our ships were throwing down
a heavy barraqe lust beVond the