June 17, 2005
Rotterdam, Germany, 1944. Kaiser country. Deep behind enemy lines. The cold November rain fell like big sloppy buckets of frozen knockwurst tossed off the Valhallaian dinner table of some damnable Nordic deity, Baldur or Wotan. We were hold up in a deserted gothic castle, surrounded by enemy panzers. Though we had dispatched literally thousands of those bastards, fighting with the ferocity of starved lions, after 9 straight days of intensive fire fight our company of all-black Commando’s, “The Howling Jigaboos’’ had finally been whittled down to just three men – myself, “Slick Willy” Clinton, and D .
Slick Willy was in a bad way, he was gut shot. Sweat pellets like glass beads rolled across his brow. He was on the ground caterwauling like Mr. Orange in Reservoir Dogs. And me, I had the foot rot, and damned if it doesn’t trouble me to this very day. The outlook was bleak. Sure I was a crack shot with my trusty Red Rider Rifle; I could pick off those Ratzi’s faster than they could say ‘Gesundheit!.’ But I was running out of bullets. I only had enough to get 2, maybe 3 dozen more, but there were a lot more than that. And the foot rot made the smell unbearable. We wouldn’t last long.
But we weren’t licked yet, we still had D on our side. D, the man I was proud to call Captain. He’d been like a second mother to me when I was just a snot nosed punk who didn’t know his ass from his ankles, suckling me at his great teat of hard won experience. He was a man carved of pure whup-ass. He’d lick those Ratzi’s, and get us out of this jam. I’ll never forget what he did…
Here’s lookin’ at you, kid!
