The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals - Brett McKay [65]
Outside Beaumont, there was a lot of fire going on. Lieutenant Colonel Billy Turner, 1st Battalion’s commanding officer, stood on top of a tank turret and directed fire at a .75. He was hit in the head by a sniper’s bullet and collapsed. Since he was at the front of a six-tank column, the whole advance halted, exposing the column to enemy fire. I ran over and leaned headfirst into the tank’s turret where he had fallen. With the help of the tank’s crew I pulled the battalion commander out just before he died. It was an agonizing moment. Lieutenant Colonel Turner was a good man and much revered. At least the tank column could keep moving again.
I never did get back to my unit. The last thing I remember was being in Carentan with three others, walking headlong through town in an attempt to reach E Company. All I knew was that they were meeting fierce resistance and needed medics. The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital with a cast on my leg from ankle to hip. I have no idea why. I have no recollection of how I got wounded. There was no record of anybody picking me up. One moment I was trying to get back to my unit. The next minute I was in the hospital cast.
In the hospital I got the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star for my action trying to save Lieutenant Colonel Turner (I never knew who recommended me for it), and the Croix de Guerre. Somebody stole my uniform, all my equipment, my medals, and everything I had.
They wouldn’t send me back to my unit because of my condition. They figured that because I was still in and out I either had a concussion or was a victim of combat fatigue. They ran me through all these tests. A doctor determined I had a severe concussion and had cracked three vertebrate in my neck. Those were causing the blackouts.
That was all I needed to know. Five of us decided to go AWOL, left the hospital, and went back to the 506th. I was with the unit for fifty-one days trying to get set up to go to Holland. It’s funny—for those fifty-one days I’m still counted AWOL, even though I was back with my unit. After that time they sent me to the general hospital in England to serve in the seriously wounded ward. I was still blacking out occasionally.
Working in the ward turned out to be one of my favorite experiences. Sometimes we worked two or three days straight on the guys, if a convoy came in, but it felt like we could actually do some good for the men. The doctors and nurses took me under their wing. I got so I could give penicillin shots without waking a guy up. That felt important. It was an honor to serve in that ward.
It’s true, we saw some horrific things in the ward. Some guys were in really bad shape. The Germans had a land mine called the castrator. It was a long bullet about eight inches long. They stuck it in the soil, and all that could be seen was the tip of the bullet. Guys stepped on it, and the blast went up the leg. One night we had thirty-four men wounded in this manner. Some lost legs, some had their lower legs shattered. You can imagine it.
I stayed with the general hospital in England until I was transferred to another general hospital, in France. There, I helped the chaplain. When I was a kid, I had found out that I was immune to almost all the common diseases. So the chaplain had me go into the communicable-disease ward to talk to the guys.
After that I operated a switchboard for trunk lines throughout France. I don’t know how I got hooked up with that, but I took to it naturally.
Man Is Strong Only as He Is Strong From Within
FROM SELF-CONTROL, ITS KINGSHIP AND MAJESTY, 1905
By William George Jordan
Self-confidence without self-reliance, is as useless as a cooking recipe—without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the individual; self-reliance realizes them.
The man who is self-reliant says ever: “No one can realize my possibilities for me, but me; no one can make me good or evil but myself.”