How did it happen that you got hit and Hudson and Bedrick got killed what was the sequence
of events that led up to that and the event itself the sequence of the events was that
a lieutenant colonel who was with us with a battalion I was with at that point and this
was quite rare you seldom saw a field grade officer you know directing works which are
being conducted by company grade officers others captains and lieutenants at one point
he thought he detected on my behavior some kind of hesitation to move into a dangerous
position and I thought he was mistaken because I gesturing my troops to go into it my sergeant
had already taken half of a platoon across this road which was being machine gunned and
I was to bring the latter half if I hadn't brought them they might never have gotten
there so I was waiting uh waiting for the moment to go across the road and this Lieutenant
Colonel was very angry with me and he said anymore of that and you're going to get in
real trouble he thought I was avoiding danger and uh so consequently a little later in the
day I had an opportunity to get into a a uh an empty German bunker which the troops we'd
been fighting against had vacated and I didn't get in there because I didn't want the Lieutenant
Colonel to see me avoiding danger a second time uh Sergeant Hudson was with me and so
was Lieutenant Bedricky who was in charge of the machine guns and the three of us were
on top of the roof the dirt roof of this bunker and nobody decided to take safety in it at
a moment when that uh the eighty eight was still firing regularly into the woods I understood
I think the shells were sort of walking up toward you absolutely it was getting closer
and closer to us but about five had gone off and I thought good God there can't be sixth
it's impossible and anyhow I will not lead these other two guys into the bunker because
if the Lieutenant Colonel sees me again I'll be in the real trouble he has prophesied and
so I didn't and we all laid down together and this uh final artillery shell went off
above us shrapnel striking me hitting Sergeant Hudson so badly that he died virtually instantly
and killing in the same way Lieutenant Bedricky so I was the only survivor out of the three
of us and that that was that moment but the reason was perfectly human thing that is the
desire not to seem a coward in the eyes of a senior officer did have you have you ever
felt in any way responsible for their deaths no no no it could've happened to anybody yeah
yeah no no no and I was doing my best I was being very brave at that moment yeah by not
leaving so I was equipped with a a uh rationalization yeah which what it did was it took off a chunk
of your leg to the point where you're on forty percent disability even today is that correct
that's right yeah which I don't mind at all because uh when I smoked that was cigarette
money and just came in automatically yeah and it now goes into my bank account and I
don't even notice it anymore it's about five hundred dollars a month which is something
yeah yeah and and you make the point uh late in uh Doing Battle you still think of you
still remember the war among other reasons when you're outside you're always looking
at land as a from the military stand point and your leg will never let you forget it
worse than that uh when I hear air hammers outside uh in construction work it sounds
so much like a machine gun that I look around to find a place where I can hide from the
fire yeah yeah yeah you never get over it ever yeah yeah as somebody like James Jones
the novelist realized you keep it forever yeah right right This excerpt is brought to
you by the Massachusetts School of Law