"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it"
- General Robert E. Lee
The Hill
This country celebrates and is based on war. In our short history as a nation, we have either started or gleefully participated in no less than 10 wars. Besides the use of bullets, we have declared war on a myriad of things: The war on drugs, The war on poverty, The war on hunger, The war on equal rights, and a boatload more that don't quickly come to mind. Being a kid in the 60s was to wallow in the celebration of war. It was the Centennial of the American Civil War, with parades and celebrations throughout the country. The media was overloaded with the war in the movies and television. The weekly show "Combat!" on ABC was one of my favorites. A show based on small platoon action mostly in Italy and later France and Germany. Lots of death, lots of "Amerikaner Dog". Is it any wonder that little boys everywhere had all forms of small arms weapons and used them in their everyday adventures?
Little Johnny mowing them down
The very mention of "The Hill" fills me with thoughts of warm late summer afternoons when my friends and myself would go on neighborhood patrol looking for the "enemy", might be "Japs", might be "Krauts" whatever our imagination could come up with. Armed to the teeth we began our walk along the well-worn trail in between the houses on the adjoining blocks. It took nerves of steel and the ultimate in stealth to make our way without getting caught as we weaved our way over fences behind garages and lightly traipsed through gardens of begonias and tulips, getting caught and yelled at would abort our mission.
Pausing behind a garage we took a breather and then quietly looked around the corner to see if any old informants might be watering their lawns. The all clear given, off we moved in single file watching out for big piles of branches and other lawn debris that might slow us down. Late afternoon sunshine turned a golden hue as we approached our objective. A cool breeze caught our faces and braced us for the coming fury of battle. Strange, as a child I never remember really sweating, being cold, yes, but not sweating, don't know why this comes to mind it's just a thought to set my mind to a time more than 50 years ago.
The trail ended at an expansive area between two garages, our jumping-off point. Upon a short column of concrete and brick, it is here that another twisted saga of boyhood took place. Conveniently and cleverly called "The Worm Torture Factory". It was here that we turned the compost and found large, juicy worms and decided to pounce upon them with reckless abandon. To my knowledge, none that were involved ever became serial killers, that's as far as we took our baby boomer dementia. Looking back I can only feel disgusted that I would have the temerity to look upon a living creature with such callousness, my cross to bear.
As we peered through the smoke and "fog of war" we saw a small ridge known to all kid-dom as "The Hill". In reality, it was about 1 to 1 1/2 feet high, some hill, huh? It sat at the far side of an expansive suburban lawn, the owners of which, we had no idea. In our minds, it was shortly after D-Day1944 and our small platoon was slowly making our way inland from the beachhead looking for machine gun nests and enemy activity in general.
The late afternoon sun ducked behind a small cloud, giving us a moment's chance to dash down the driveway to "The Hill". We hit the dirt just as the Vickers Machine Gun opened up on us, shooting clumps of dirt just above our heads. Our boys responded with shots from their M1s and our Sergeant gave the krauts a short burst of his Tommy gun. We were pinned down. We needed to eliminate this installation before the main body came up. We all turned our heads to look at ol' Greenie, as he was the best crawler in the platoon. Slowly John edged his way to the end of the hill and as we kept up covering fire he made his way around until he was close enough to lobe a grenade into the midst of the enemy. The ensuing explosion showered us with dirt and bits of metal. We peered over the top. There stood ol' Greenie grinning from ear to ear looking down at the dead Krauts. We had lived to continue our patrol.
I had probably the best of childhoods. my friends and I could conjure up any one of a multitude of games just using our surroundings and the things we had at hand. Life has held many treacherous turns in the ensuing 60 years. No matter what may happen, I have these memories that warm my heart and reminds me how wonderful it was to live my best life.
