P.S. Lost my friend Beamis last week.
1945
Sporadic gunfire could still be heard as the medic slowly crawled toward the soldier. When he reached him, he quickly removed the chain around his neck, shoved the metal dog tag up between his two front teeth as hard as he could…and moved on.
It was a brutal job. He had sometimes cracked a tooth or split a lip in the process, but with so many bodies blown apart, guts, brains, arms, and legs everywhere, mistakes could be made. In the rush to get the dead and wounded off the battlefield as soon as possible, dog tags had fallen off or were lost, and mix-ups had occurred. This was the only way they knew to try to get the right soldier shipped back to the right place. With so many casualties, too many families had been sent the wrong body.
As the medic crawled over to the next one, he hoped the boy he had just left would make it home okay. He looked like a nice kid. Probably came from a nice family.
All through the war, the town had conducted the required blackout drills and elected neighborhood fire wardens, but nobody really believed that Elmwood Springs would be attacked. They heard about the war, saw it in the newsreels, read about it in the paper, but the war was so far away, most felt that it couldn’t possibly reach them.
Then on a Sunday in 1945, fifteen-year-old Macky Warren, who was working for Bess at the Western Union office, would get on his bicycle and deliver a telegram that would change a family’s lives forever. Why did it have to be on a Sunday?
When he woke up, it was dark, and he could hear a loud clacking noise rumbling underneath him. From the vibration, he had the strange sensation that he was moving. But where was he?…In a hospital?…Still on the beach?
Twenty-two-year-old Private First Class Gene Lordor Nordstrom lay there trying to figure out what was going on. The last thing he remembered was being scared, running up the beach, then nothing. It wasn’t until he felt the dog tag that had been shoved in between his two front teeth that he knew where he was. Oh, shit…he was dead. He was dead on a train going home.
Well, that part was good, he guessed. He knew some of the boys never made it out of there. Then he suddenly panicked. “Wait a minute. I’m married. I have a little girl. What’s going to happen to her? Oh, God. I hope my GI insurance will be enough.” Then he thought about his wife, Marion. “Oh, Marion, I didn’t have nearly enough time with you.”
Two days later, when the train screeched to a slow stop, a man’s voice called out, “Elmwood Springs!” It was still dark, but soon Gene heard the sound of boxcar doors being slid open all the way down the line, and he began to get a little impatient. “Come on…here I am.” Finally, they were at his boxcar. He heard the loud scraping sound of a metal door being slid open, and bright sunshine suddenly filled the car. Two men climbed in and walked over to him.
One man said, “Are you sure this is the right one?” The other answered, “Yeah, it says right here on the tag: Nordstrom, Elmwood Springs, Missouri, but Ed said not to move him until the family gets here.”
While they waited, one of the men lit a cigarette. “God,” thought Gene, “that cigarette smells good.” Then he heard more footsteps and someone said, “Okay, boys, bring him on out.” Gene suddenly felt himself being lifted up, then lowered down onto something flat. That’s when he looked over and saw his parents and his aunt Elner standing there. He was so happy to see them, he wanted to shout a great big hello, but they were so quiet, so still, as they walked along beside him. As he was wheeled down the platform, he thought, “Say something, somebody….It’s me. I’m home.” But there was nothing but the sound of footsteps and the creaking of the wheels beneath him. Everyone they passed stood still and silent. Men had taken off their hats, and Hazel Goodnight stood with her hand over her mouth, then reached out and touched his mother’s arm as she went by.
It had been a military funeral, and he was proud when the soldier took the American flag off of his coffin, folded it, and handed it to his mother, but then he had to look away. The look on his mother’s face hurt him too much. He must have drifted off again because when he woke up, he felt himself being lowered into the ground. After a moment, he heard a very familiar voice say, “Hello there, young man. Welcome to Still Meadows.”
“Miss Beemer? Is that you? Do you remember me? It’s Gene Nordstrom. I had you in the sixth grade.”
“Little Gene. Of course, I remember you…but what in the world are you doing here?”
“I got killed in the war, Miss Beemer.”
“Oh, you don’t mean it. Well, bless your heart. Oh, I know your parents must be so upset.”
“Yes, ma’am, they are.”
“Of course, they would be. I remember when you were in my class, I told your mother…I said, ‘Mrs. Nordstrom, Gene is one of the sweetest boys I have ever taught.’ Well, I sure am sorry.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate it.”
“What happened, honey?”
“I got shot, but it didn’t hurt or anything.”
“Well, I’ll be. You just never know in this world, do you?”
“No, ma’am. You sure don’t.”
Gene heard someone snoring. “Miss Beemer, who’s that over there?”
“That’s Eustus Percy Hendersen. He’s awake a lot more than he pretends to be.” Then she asked in a loud voice, “Are you awake, Mr. Hendersen?”
“Well, I am now,” said the old man.
“Mr. Hendersen, this is Gene Nordstrom. He used to be one of my students.”
Gene said, “How do you do.”
Mr. Hendersen nodded. “What’s that uniform?”
“I’m in the marine corps. Or I used to be.”
Lucille said, “He got killed in the war, Mr. Hendersen.”
“What war?”
“The Second World War.”
“The second? You mean there was another one? Who are we fighting this time?”
“Germany and Japan,” answered Lucille.
Mr. Hendersen said, “Germany? Hell. We licked them once. What the hell are we doing fighting them again? It figures….That’s the most ornery bunch that ever was. Who else did you say?”
“Japan, Mr. Hendersen,” said Lucille. “Haven’t you heard us all talking about it?”
“No, I don’t listen to all that yimmer yammering. Japan…huh…well, that’s nothing to worry about. Hell, they ain’t no bigger than a minute.”
Gene said, “Yes, sir…but there’s an awful lot of them.”
Lucille decided to change the subject. “I was telling Gene a little while ago that he was one of the sweetest boys I ever taught, but then his mother and daddy are sweet people. I taught his aunt Elner, too.”
Mr. Hendersen grunted. “You’re not going to have a whole bunch of relatives stomping around here, are you?”
“Mr. Hendersen, let’s just let the boy rest for now. He just got here.”
—
A FEW MINUTES WENT BY, and Gene said, “Miss Beemer?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Did you know I got married?”