Saipan, Okinawa, Reprise

Being fearless is for the young or stupid or a combination of the two. Been there, done that...

After being hit on Okinawa, April 12, 1945, the Army shipped my lower case jewish ass to the ambulatory hospital (for patients who could fucking walk) on Saipan. It was not a "cool" place to be. And I'm not talking about the weather.

When everyone around me was some poor shot up son a bitch there was nothing special about me. Recovering from a gunshot was as special, in that hospital, as being constipated. (A serious problem when you're 65. Hardly noticed, if at all, when you're"21.)The story about how and where someone else got hit was downright, fucking boring.

Almost everyone was consumed with getting back to their outfits. But there was a hard core group of whiners who were always bucking for a discharge. They were always coming up with novel reasons to get shipped back to the States. Those guys were very creative, inventing different kinds of crazy behavior, to get a Section 8.

In the end the wannabe nuts never fooled anyone, particularly the few shrinks we had. Anyhow we all knew that to be a good shrink you had to be at least a little crazy. So how do you convince someone who is quite a bit nuts that you're nuts with him? Never saw it done.

No one felt sorry for me because I could barely walk up that fucking hill to the mess hall. Where else would the army put the mess hall except in the most inconvenient, pain inducing location?

There were Japanese soldiers with ammo still left in the hills who didn't know or care that the U.S. had taken the island. Almost every day machine gun fire would erupt from those hills and we'd all scramble like crazy for some kind, any kind of cover. Once hit, twice shy.

When that bullet went through my leg on Okinawa, I realized for the first time that some asshole, who I didn’t even know, could fucking kill me. Losing my cherry on Okinawa was not fun. Bullet wounds do hurt and really can kill. As one did kill Sgt. Boggs whose place I took in my outfit. Damn poor way for me to make Sergeant.

What really pissed everyone off was that the Japanese machine gun fire coming down from the hills would often come when we were on the Coke line. Yeah, we stood on line, daily to get a Coke.

The line would disintegrate when the fucking noise and bullets started showing up. Everyone, instantly, started scrambling, with me dragging my gimpy leg. We were like whores on Saturday night looking for some kind of protection.

The line reformed after, a few minutes of excitement and the Japanese went back into their hideout caves. Being something less than speedy I always ended up at the end of the damn line.

While on Saipan, I would go on sick call almost daily and complain about my difficulty in navigating the walk to the fucking mess hall which was up a hill. Three times a day up that hill in constant discomfort (aka pain). And for awful food to boot!

Most of those asshole doctors were newly minted lieutenants. In their crispy clean, stateside fresh uniforms (while I looked like shit) would tell me that there was nothing wrong with my leg and that I was just bucking for a discharge. I also was accused of trying for a Section 8 discharge for mental disorder because of my bizarre behavior concerning my leg and otherwise. Otherwise is the operative word. Basically those over educated schmucks looked down at us enlisted men.

At one sick call, a starchy clean, schmuck of a newly arrived doctor really got annoyed with me and shouted, "Do you want me to hold your leg?" To which I replied "Yeah, for as long as it would help." Where upon he went off the fucking wall and threatened to have me court martialed. He did, however, send me to another doctor, a pediatrician in civilian life.

The pediatrician knew, for fucking certain, that I wasn't pregnant and he took the time and trouble to really examine my x-rays. He discovered that all the bones in my knee were shattered from the impact of the bullet going through the flesh and bone of my leg below my knee. My tibia, he said, was not too swift and there wasn't anything he could do to make me feel better.

However knowing what was wrong with me didn't make the mess hall hill any less steep or shorter. And my Jewish ass really missed those asshole Boston Irish from my outfit, so I started making noise to leave Saipan and rejoin my outfit that was still on that fucking mud hole, Okinawa. Back I went to rejoin my anti Semitic (And who cared?) buddies again.

It's impossible even after almost 70 years, to forget the time that fear, for the first time, took hold in my empty head. It was when, flat on my back in a hospital tent after being hit and. waiting to be transported to a hospital ship that the Japanese airplanes returned. I couldn't move and there was no way for me to take cover. Plenty, fucking scary. My big mouth and my go fuck yourself attitude was of no help.

Seen it all, done it all.Thank God that I remember most of it.