Battle Hardened by Craig S. Chapman

Author:Craig S. Chapman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621577089
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2017-11-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

LUXEMBOURG

Bill began the journey of a wounded soldier, one that would take him three months to complete. The ambulance delivered him to the medical clearing station just outside Lommersweiler, Belgium, where the staff made sure his vital signs had stabilized. He then traveled to the division’s field hospital for surgery to remove the bullet and shrapnel from his thigh. He convalesced there for a few weeks.1

Bill wrote to Beth at once to tell her that he had been wounded before she got one of the dreaded War Department telegrams. She wrote back to ask him where on his leg he was hit. He replied, “Two more inches and we would have had to adopt our children.”2

While he sat in the hospital some good news arrived. His promotion to First Lieutenant came through. The Army issued the orders with an effective date of September 13, the day he had entered Germany. In October, General Barton came by the hospital to visit his wounded soldiers and award medals. To Bill’s surprise, the general presented him the Silver Star. The citation lauded Bill’s “gallantry in action” at Mortain. The medal pleased Bill, a little. Naturally, he appreciated being recognized for his conduct in battle but he developed a diffident attitude about decorations. “I don’t think much of medals because many are not given properly.” He never considered his actions at Mortain to be any more heroic than in a dozen other battles and less so than several other occasions for which he received no official recognition. He knew of many others who never got noticed for courageous acts under fire that equaled or exceeded his own. Some of them did not live to see the final victory.3

The wounds to Bill’s leg, though not as acute as the near fatal injuries he suffered in Normandy, did not mend as well. A nerve had been severed and his leg became paralyzed. For a few tense weeks, Bill worried that he might have been crippled. His condition forced the Army to evacuate him all the way to a hospital in England. Gradually, the nerve healed. He went through weeks of physical therapy that finally restored movement in his leg.

Bill’s spirits got a boost on Thanksgiving Day. A packet of forty-three letters, twenty-five from Beth, finally caught up with him in the hospital. He stacked the letters, dated between May 19 and July 6, in chronological order, then pored through them.4

After his release from the hospital, Bill reported back to the 10th Replacement Depot. “Same old place as it was in Jan[uary] and July.” Some of the same people, too. They told Bill he looked five years older. He shrugged it off. “They say I still can grin so I must be O.K.” He noticed something about the men who hung back in England. “They have a soft life here. Strangely enough they are more afraid of being transferred to combat than any combat man is. Fear is one hell of a tough opponent but one’s mind is one’s strongest ally.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.