Taught to Kill: An American Boy's War from the Ardennes to Berlin

From Home Front to The Front

From Home Front to The Front z After sixteen months in uniform, I felt like I had the record for longest time in grade as a lowly private in military history . Finally the Army decided it should confer on me the distinguished rank of private first class, in recognition of my acquired professional status as mortar gunner. I wrote my mother that fifteen thousand divisional troops, in full dress splendor, passed in review to commemorate my prestigious new adornment. Truth was, Slewfoot, our hideous First Sergeant, threw two pitiful little scraps of cloth on my bunk and ordered that the chevrons be properly sewed on in time for Saturday inspection. My pay was raised from $50 a month to $54. What in the world to do with all that extra cash? I squandered the $4 buying extra chevrons, a sewing kit, and a necktie more suitable for weekend passes than the rough-textured GI rag that had been tossed to me by an old-timer supply sergeant. There’s no Army rank lower than Private, unless it be Supernumerary Private, reserved for the rawest rookies awaiting assignment to a squad, or a body to fill out a casual work-detail short a man. I was on my way up the ranks. How far was I from the pinnacle of enlisted rank? Private, Pri11 12 Taught to Kill vate First Class, Corporal, Buck Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Technical Sergeant, and the ultimate: three stripes up, three down, with a diamond in the middle: First Sergeant. Without the center diamond , six stripers were Master Sergeants. It’s appropriate for a PFC to be humble, but no need to overdo it. In addition to my single stripe, I had my Expert rifle medal, earned back in my first Basic, using a WWI model 1911 .30-caliber Enfield bolt-action rifle. Now, in a division headed for overseas, other arms skills were required: Proficiency with a brand new semi-automatic Garand Rifle M-I, followed by the .30 semi-automatic carbine, Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), .45 pistol, and the light machinegun. I liked that little carbine with its stubby .30-caliber cartridges. It was meant for in-close fighting and personal defense; it was light, handy, and accurate up to 200 yards. I was pretty good with all the basic infantry tools, and so hot with a BAR that I turned in a score far lower than I actually shot. No use risking being assigned to carry that twenty-one-pound magnet for enemy fire. Scuttlebutt was that BAR men had less chance of survival than machine gunners. I specialized in carbines and mortars. In a weapons platoon, proficiency was required in both light mortars and air-cooled machineguns. Wartime scarcity required that our machine-gun proficiency tests be carried out with modified barrels that fired little .22 cartridges . The exercise didn’t seem real and was far from satisfying. I tripped off a few bursts of real, GI .30-caliber bullets just before we shipped out. Red-tipped tracers were mixed in the 300-round ammo belt. The deafening noise and fiery stream of real bullets made me a real believer. When that gun is spitting out lead a handful of bullets per second, you feel a rush of invincibility. A man behind a machine gun is a man in charge! Mortars go back as far as gunpowder itself. You set off a propelling force under a projectile in a tube that gives it direction, and lob a missile high in the air, usually over a wall or rampart. Whether it is a stone, cast iron ball, or high explosive shell, the missile drops almost vertically on its quarry. Explosive mortar projectiles usually vault over a hill or defensive barrier. Their al- From Home Front to The Front 13 most silent arrival is a lethal surprise to the enemy. Defenders don’t care much for death dropping silently from straight above. Artillery, on the other hand, is like a rifle bullet, seemingly straight at you, actually in a low arc. Functionally, mortars and artillery are both able to shoot at an angle forty-five degrees above horizontal. That is exactly midway between level and straight up in the air, producing the maximum range for both weapons. For that matter, anything propelled forward—be it an arrow, a spear, a baseball, the catapult that preceded the mortar, or...