| Table of Contents < - - - return Chapter 15 - Peace in the valley? < - - - next Don Bennett's War Chapter 14 - First Casualty _______________________ We were pretty hungry by this time, having eaten the only rations we could carry with us and being too far in front of our supplies to get anything from them There was a little garden about 50 yards in front of us, so to satisfy our hunger one of us would occasionally dash out and get some of the few remaining plants in the garden. Those raw rutabagas and cabbages were very tasty. About four o'clock in the
afternoon, our squad sergeant called us together to tell us about when
and where the outpost guard was to be, and where. We then violated a
lesson we learned all during training, and a lesson very seldom violated
thereafter - that of a group of men bunching together. We just had our
guard problem straightened out when Wham! Wham! Wham! The enemy had
let us have three well placed artillery shells. One hit very close to
us, close enough to shake us and momentarily shock us. My feet headed
toward my foxhole but my body didn't move. In my mind, my feet were
moving but they actually weren't. When the moment of shock was off,
I made the thirty feet to my hole in two seconds. In one movement I
jumped into my hole, right through my camouflage, and rammed my head
into the hole at the end of my hole. I then prayed, "Please God,
don't let them hit me" over and over again in a scared, hysterical
voice. I heard someone yelling for "medic", so I knew someone
was hit. The shelling seemed over, so we got out of our holes to find
that our platoon sergeant was seriously wounded in the chest and a mortar
man for the weapons platoon wounded in the arm. We had our first of
many casualties.
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