The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [105]
Jastrzembski was one of those dirty, unshaven men. His fatigues were caked in mud and diarrhea. He had sweated out the malaria attack, but his limbs were still trembling. His right eye quivered uncontrollably. Just the thought of the previous day’s battle, of cradling his buddy, of staring into the hole in La Venture’s belly knowing that he was a goner, made the bile well in Jastrzembski’s mouth. He tried to put the image out of his head. He was on his way back to the aid station where a buddy had told him they were passing out new jeans. Now more than anything else he just wanted a new pair of jeans. That is when he looked up and saw the general and “lots of brass” walking toward him. Immediately, he realized the general was new. Eichelberger wore his insignia of rank—no officer who had spent any time on the front dared to do that. A Japanese sniper would pick him off in a matter of minutes.
“Soldier, show me the front,” Eichelberger said.
Jastrzembski hardly heard him.
“The front, soldier, the front. I want to see the front,” Eichelberger demanded.
“Follow me,” Corporal Jastrzembski said.
Eichelberger, who was already irritated by the lack of discipline he had witnessed, scowled. He was a three-star general. Who did this soldier think he was talking to him like that?
After walking a hundred yards or so, Eichelberger asked Jastrzembski where the command post was, and Jastrzembski pointed down the trail. Then the general reached in his pocket and handed him a pack of cigarettes. Jastrzembski was a cigar man, but he took the cigarettes anyway. He knew he could trade them later for chewing gum.
Eichelberger stopped at the command post, and then farther down the trail he encountered three soldiers hiding in the long grass at the trail’s edge. When Eichelberger asked them what lay ahead, the men answered that an enemy machine gunner had fired on them hours before. Eichelberger was surprised. Hadn’t they bothered to scout the trail since? The men told the general that they had not. Eichelberger then offered to decorate any one of them brave enough to move forward. When no one volunteered, the general was incensed.
Later, Eichelberger held a meeting of his senior officers at Stutterin’ Smith’s command post, which was nothing more than a collection of tables around a large hollow tree stump. Smith had a field phone, which was connected to other field phones by single-strand Australian wire. When Smith phoned his company commanders, every phone in the jungle rang—including the Japanese ones.
Harding also attended the meeting. It was the first time since early October that he had seen Smith, and Harding did not recognize him at first. The gaunt, bearded Smith, Harding wrote in his diary, looked like a “member of the Army of the Potomac.”
The gathering was a heated one. According to Smith, Eichelberger acted “like a bull in a china shop,” and made some “caustic comments” about what he had seen at the front, including the incident with the three men. Smith kept his mouth shut. Years later, recalling the general’s anger, he wrote, “Decorations look damn artificial to a soldier who is filthy, fever ridden, practically starved, living in a tidal swamp and frustrated from seeing his buddies killed.” Listening to Eichelberger denigrate his men, Colonel Mott could no longer hold his temper.
“Dammit,” Mott said. “Anybody who thinks the men aren’t fighting, doesn’t know beans. Do you have any idea of what it’s like out there? The mountains were hell on the men. And now they’re fighting in swamp water up to their chests. You want to know why? Because the Japs have every piece of high ground from here to Australia.”
Harding threw his cigarette to the ground and snuffed it out. He agreed.
Then, Eichelberger’s voice rose, “You’re licked!” he said, looking at Mott and Harding. “Your men aren’t fighting;