Hatred

        by

    Susan Balnek-Ballard

CHIP SAUNDERS’ LIST OF THINGS TO DO WHEN THE WAR IS OVER.  (in
no particular order)!

Drink a cold beer in a frosted glass sitting in a chair under the crabapple tree in
mom’s backyard.

Take the prettiest girl in Evanston to the movies at the Chicago Theater - a funny
show - maybe Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.  Has to be funny!

Listen to my kid sister beg and plead for me to get the car out and drive her down to
Wieboldt’s Department Store.  Let her go on for hours - just to hear her voice!

Get a steak, medium rare at McKenzie’s; smothered in mushrooms and a baked
potato with sour cream.

Drink all the coffee I want, with all the cream and sugar I can handle without
gagging.

Eat an entire pie baked by mom and watch her face when she sees how much I’m
enjoying myself.  Make it peach and add a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Let the water run in the kitchen sink until it’s so cold, it hurts my teeth to drink it.

Flush the toilet!

See a ball game at Wrigley Field.

Wash my car.

Make love to a woman I’ve known longer than an hour.

Walk down Church Street.  Stop in at Harrigan’s Bakery for a loaf of black rye
bread, sliced.  Eat half before I get home.

Take a long bath.

Shave with a new blade and HOT water.

Sleep in my own bed on my own pillow.

Beat my brother at chess.

Listen to dad read us the Sunday funnies....

 Saunders stopped and put the pencil stub back into his shirt pocket.  It took
all he had left to keep from breaking down.  Dad had been dead for years.  The pain
there had dulled but was never far from his heart.  The pain of Chris’ death in the
South Pacific was a raw, gaping wound.  God how it hurt him - worse than any
physical pain he’d ever felt.  He actually thought he might die from it.  That was
yesterday, the day before that and a week before that.  Today he knew it wouldn’t
kill him, unless he allowed it to.
 He wasn’t home.  He was still at war and unless he got down to the here and
now, he might make the mistake that would keep him here forever; keep him from
home; him and maybe the men in his charge.  That was simply not going to happen.
 Hanley’s soft voice reached out to Saunders through the fog of his grief.  He
wished people would just leave him alone.  They all meant well - the chaplain,
Lieutenant Hanley, Billy, even Kirby.
 “Leave me alone, Lieutenant...please,” Saunders asked without even looking
up from his position on the ground.  His posture telegraphed his emotions.  He sat,
back rounded against a tree, legs drawn up, forearms resting on knees, a small
notebook held tightly in both hands, his head lowered.  Helmet and Thompson lay
close by on the ground.
 He hadn’t even heard the lieutenant’s words, just the sound of his voice.  A
hand rested briefly on Saunders’ shoulder and Hanley was gone and he was alone,
blessedly alone.  He closed his eyes and leaned back against the tree.  The solitude
wouldn’t last - it couldn’t.

 At first Saunders harbored no hatred against the men who’d killed his brother.
It was war.  Chris had been a soldier.  The men who’d killed him had been soldiers.
They just happened to be Japanese.
 But something changed in the sergeant.  The more he realized his loss, his
mother’s and sister’s, hate developed.  First he blamed the war and then it became
more personal.  He blamed the Japanese and now they became Japs in his eyes.  No
longer Japanese or soldiers...Japs.  This hate transferred itself to the immediate
enemy, the enemy he’d been fighting for nearly two years - the Germans.
 In the first battle joined after Saunders was notified of his brother’s death, the
sergeant was as a man possessed.  Single-handedly he took out a kraut machine gun
emplacement, killing six German soldiers.
 Lieutenant Hanley was livid with anger.  The smoke had barely cleared;
Saunders still stood over the nest, Thompson ready.  He was breathing heavily,
sweating profusely.
 “What the hell was that all about, Saunders?”  Hanley bellowed.
 The sergeant did not reply and this only served to fuel Hanley’s anger.
 The lieutenant grabbed Saunders by the shoulder and roughly pulled the
smaller man around to face him.  Saunders’ anger matched the officer’s.
 “MY JOB, LIEUTENANT!  I was doing my job!  KILL THE ENEMY!  Kill
them before they kill us!”
 “Getting yourself killed is not part of your job, Sergeant!”  Hanley’s voice
crackled with fury.  He bent his head down to where his face was within inches of
Saunders’.
 “I will not allow you to commit suicide.  The risk you took today was
absolutely unacceptable!  One more stunt like that and you’ll be relieved of duty!”
 What frightened Hanley the most, terrified him, was that Saunders’
expression never altered.  It was completely blank.  Saunders simply did not seem to
care.
 “Get back to your squad, Sergeant.” Hanley ordered.
 Gil Hanley had to do something, but what?  He needed the sergeant and
whether Saunders knew it or not, he also was in desperate need.
 Doc went over to where the sergeant leaned against a dilapidated stone wall,
the Thompson hanging by its sling from one hand, a Lucky Strike held between the
fingers of the other.  As was usual lately, the sergeant had no expression on his
increasingly thin, wan face.
 “Come on over here, Sergeant and sit down a minute,” the medic coaxed,
placing his hand under Saunders’ elbow.  Brokering no argument, Doc maneuvered
the sergeant to a low spot in the wall.  Saunders sat and looked up at the medic who
ignored the non-com and went about his business, tearing open bandaging and
locating a scalpel.  He leaned over Saunders and slit open the left sleeve of his shirt
from wrist to elbow.  Saunders sucked in his breath.
 “It’s not bad, Sarge...a flesh wound.”  Saunders seemed not to hear but the
hand holding the cigarette began to tremble as Doc worked.  The ash dropped to the
ground and the cigarette followed.  Doc said nothing more other than “Try to get
some sleep.  I heard the lieutenant give out watch assignments already.  Yours was
last.”  The medic packed up his kit and Saunders was relieved and very grateful that
Doc, unlike everybody else in the squad, kept his opinions and solicitations to
himself.  If only Saunders had known how hard it had been for the thoughtful, caring
medic to just ‘let it go.’
 “Thanks, Doc,” Saunders offered as Doc turned to walk away.  It was
whispered but the medic heard, turned and smiled.  It was a small step.

 He’d been asleep for what seemed only moments when it sounded like all hell
was breaking loose.  Sleep for the first time in a week and to be rousted from it!
But the sergeant rolled out of sleep without effort, the ability learned through too
many nights spent under the threats of war.  When he woke, he was wide awake,
the Thompson brought up into his arm, the helmet located and donned.  If he had
been lost in dreams moments before, they were quickly brushed aside.
 Hell had broken loose.  2nd Platoon was being hammered by enemy artillery
and small arms fire.  They were surrounded.  Communications with Company had
been cut off.
 After more than 12 hours of a ceaseless assault, 25% of the platoon were
dead, fully 50% were wounded and yet they held on somehow.  During a brief lull,
Saunders was summoned to Hanley.  The lieutenant had been badly wounded.  Doc
got up from Hanley’s side and made room for the sergeant to sit close.
 “I want you to get back to Company, Sergeant.”  Hanley had to stop and
gather strength and breath.  The feeble light given off by a late fall sun showed the
poor state Hanley was in; blood soaked bandaging across his chest, face ashen, eyes
darkly shadowed.  Saunders nodded.  “Yes, Sir.”
 “I have no idea exactly where Company is...so I’m sending  you west,
Murphy east and Ramirez south....One of you is bound to make it.  Get help,
Saunders.  Give ‘em our position.  We can’t hold out much longer, but you know
that.  Speed, Sergeant...speed and luck.”  The lieutenant attempted a smile but it
was only an attempt and it failed.
 Without comment, the sergeant rested his hand lightly on the lieutenant’s
shoulder, then rose to leave.  Murphy and Ramirez were already on their way, their
fate would remain unknown.

  Rain that started as a gentle, almost spring-like shower became a driving,
punishing and cold late autumn downpour.  It made Saunders introspective.
Although he knew his job and the urgency of its speedy accomplishment, his
thoughts turned again to his brother.  The pain of loss strangled him; tore away his
stoicism.  Tears ran down his cheeks, lost and invisible in the rain.  He began to jog,
then to run as if he could out distance his agony.  His breath whistled in his ears; his
heart pounded as if to burst from his chest.
  Darkness began to descend, a slow twilight.  He ran full out until he could run
no further, his lack of rest and strung out nerves causing his body to fail.  He slid,
fell heavily and lay sprawled flat out on the roadside.  His breathing began to slow.
 Someone was following him!  At the very least someone was coming up on
his position from the rear.
 Saunders got to his knees and to his feet - shaking, his legs like jello.  He
made it to the edge of the woods and scant feet beyond before his senses, like his
body before, utterly failed.

 The soldier crouched down and peered into the face of the man whose path
he’d just happened to cross.  The rain was tapering off and in the ever deepening
twilight, the soldier completed his appraisal.  He half rose and turned back toward
the direction from which he’d come.  Already the sounds of his companions were
audible as the column exited the woods.
 “I need Doc up here on the double!”  He turned back to the unconscious man,
speaking to him as if he could be heard.
 “It’s gonna be okay, Sarge.  Our doc’s a real doctor, not just a medic.  He’ll
fix you right up fast.”  He was young and had not yet learned to disguise his
emotions either in voice or expression, to cover up his feelings as men were wont to
do.
 Saunders heard the low incoherent hum of voices.  Whether they were
American or German remained a mystery for long tortuous moments.  When
Saunders eventually sorted the humming into separate voices, the words followed
and the knowledge that the speakers were American quieted the panic that had
begun to envelope him.
 One voice stood out to Saunders, the soldier who had found him.  The voice
was quiet and reassuring, brotherly in its tone.  Brotherly!  Saunders moaned at the
ache in his heart that thought caused.  The doctor misinterpreted the sound,
believing it was a reaction to his examination.
 “Sorry, Sergeant,” he apologized.  “The dressing on your wound needed
changing.”  Then to the young soldier at Saunders’ side, “Jimmy, give him some
water.”
 “Sure, Doc, sure,” came the agreeable reply and a canteen was held to the
sergeant’s lips.
 Another voice intruded upon Saunders’ semi-consciousness.  Had to be an
officer since Saunders heard several “sirs” in both the doctor’s and Jimmy’s replies
to questions.  Still Saunders had yet to open his eyes.  The effort was just too much.
 The doctor finished checking the sergeant, got to his feet and reported to the
captain.  “He has a relatively minor bullet wound to the upper arm, happened within
the past 24 hours or so.  It’s opened up and bled freely.  His most immediate
problem is exhaustion. He’s had it, Captain.”
 “Doctor, we’ve all ‘had it,” the officer countered.  “Get him back into the
woods, out of sight.  We stay the night.”
 Strong arms lifted Saunders and carried  him a short distance, laying him on a
blanket hastily placed between his body and the wet ground.  Full night had fallen
by the time Saunders’ strength returned enough for him to open his eyes.  It was
black in the woods and moonless.  All he could see of the soldiers milling around
him were their shadowy outlines.

 “Hi Sarge...name’s Jimmy, Corporal Jimmy Maeda.  Anything you need, I’ll
be right here...just...HEY!”
 Saunders had grabbed Maeda by the sleeve in a grip amazingly strong for a
man in the sergeant’s present condition.  “I need your commanding officer,
now...right now!”  The grip relaxed but the hand stayed where it was.  “NOW,
Corporal!”  Saunders repeated.
 “Sure, Sarge, okay,” the faceless outline replied.  “Right on it!”  And the
sleeve was out of Saunders’ grasp and the youngster was gone.
 Captain Johnson knelt at the sergeant’s side and lit a Lucky.  The illumination
from the Zippo gave Saunders the first look at any of his companions.  Johnson was
fairly young, red-haired and heavily freckled.  But the seriousness of his expression
belied his youth.
 “Before I hear what you need, Sergeant, I need your name, outfit and CO.”
 “Saunders, Carson, C, 361st, 2nd Platoon, King Company.   Captain Jampel,
Sir.”
 Johnson nodded, though in the meager light given off by the burning cigarette,
Saunders couldn’t see the gesture.
 “I’m Captain Johnson, 442nd, 3rd Platoon, King Company.  What can I do
for you, Saunders?”
 “Sir, 2nd Platoon is cut off and surrounded.  I have the map coordinates.
They need immediate reinforcement.  Radio was destroyed.”  Saunders fished into
his breast pocket and pulled out the folded map.  He held it out to the officer.
 “We lost our radioman and radio too, Sergeant.  We’re miles from our own
lines.”  Johnson paused to light the Zippo and check the map Saunders had given
him.
 “Seems the only relief available to 2nd Platoon would be us.  We’ll leave
before first light - 0430.  Can your people hold out?”  Johnson lit another smoke and
offered it to Saunders.
 “They’ll hold out, Sir,” Saunders answered as he gratefully took the cigarette.

 “Dinner, Sarge?”  Again the voice belonging to Corporal Jimmy Maeda.
Without waiting for a response, Maeda pressed an open can of c-rations into
Saunders’ hand, a spoon stuck into the gelatinous contents.  By the smell, Saunders
knew it was beef stew.  His stomach heaved at the smell, very reminiscent of Pard,
the dog food they fed mother’s Springer Spaniel back home.  How many times had
Saunders just about gagged as he spooned the smelly stuff into the little black and
white spaniel’s bowl?  But not wanting to hurt the young man’s feelings and praying
the gag reflex didn’t kick in, he took a bite.  To his own surprise, Saunders found he
was hungry - starving - and he realized that going without sleep wasn’t all he’d been
going without.  He hadn’t eaten in at least two days.  It was no wonder he’d passed
out cold.
 During the first couple hours of a long night, Saunders dozed in fits and
spurts.  Always, upon waking, the corporal was there, always with a quick offer,
“Need anything, Sarge?” or “Does the Sarge just wanna talk?”
 If Saunders did not “just wanna talk,” Maeda did and Saunders didn’t mind
listening to the soldier drone on about home and girls and food and the army.
 Half way through the night, Saunders began to shiver and murmur in his
sleep.  Chills wracked his exhausted body and the worried corporal went in search
of the doctor.
 “Pass that flashlight over here,” the physician instructed as he struggled to
locate what he searched for in his knapsack in the pitch darkness.
 “Hand me the light, Jimmy.”  The corporal knelt down as well and watched
the physician with curiosity and concern as the doctor panned the small beam onto
Saunders’ face and across to his injured arm, finally handing the flash back to
Maeda. “Hold it on him for me.”
 The doctor rested the back of one hand across Saunders’ forehead.
“Feverish.  Could be infection has set in.  Could be dehydration from blood loss; or
exhaustion coupled with being soaking wet and sleeping on the damp ground.
Could be...could be....Whatever, it is.”  The doctor changed the bandaging on the
sergeant’s wound.
 “You told the captain that the sergeant’s wound wasn’t that bad, Doc.  He
won’t die...will he?”  Worry was written across the young man’s face, a face Doc
could barely make out.  But Maeda’s voice was every bit as expressive as his face.
 “No, Corporal.  He just needs a dry bed in a nice warm hospital and a couple
pints of blood.  Things he won’t be getting here.” The physician packed up his kit.
“See if you can’t scrounge up another blanket around here some place, Jim.  Keep
him warm.”  The doctor held out his hand and the corporal clicked off the flashlight
and passed it over.
 “Will do, Sir.”
 Saunders couldn’t remember when the disturbing dreams came to an end or
when sleep became deep.  He woke slowly to the sounds of soldiers readying for the
new day; low talking, some grumbling; men pulling on boots, filling their stomachs
and checking equipment.
 “He shouldn’t be moved, Captain.  And he can’t be double-timing it back to
his outfit.  I’ll get someone to stay behind with him, Maeda I think.  You’ll be
needing me.”
 The captain knew better than to question the physician.  Besides, he had no
intention of dragging Saunders back into a battle.  He’d only slow down their pace
and time was of the essence.  They’d wasted enough waiting for daylight, but in that
they’d had no choice.
 Full daylight came and found the 442nd half way to its destination - the relief
of the 361st, 2nd Platoon.  It also found Saunders awake and seeing for the first time
the corporal who had been his shadow, his guardian for the long hours past.  What
daylight revealed to Saunders was a shock and very nearly unbelievable to him.
 He paled, shook his head trying to clear the fog of the clinging fever and
sitting up, he made an attempt to scoot back, to get as far away as he could from a
specter who had been haunting him ever since he’d learned of his brother’s death.
 “Jap!” Saunders’ observation was an epithet, albeit a whispered one.  “A
god-damned Jap,” he whispered again, shaking his head in total disbelief.
 Jimmy Maeda was just as shocked by the sergeant’s reaction.  Sure, prejudice
was a way of life for a lot of Nisei children, children born in America of parents
native to Japan, but Jimmy had seldom, if ever, been subjected to it back home, at
least not before the war broke out.
 His father was a farmer in central California, well-to-do when the orchards
produced heavily, just barely making it other years.  But Seito Maeda was rich in
other ways.  He had married a girl of great beauty and sweet disposition straight off
the boat from Japan.  They were content and happy in their lives, working hard,
raising crops and kids.  The children were loved and the family accepted, welcomed
members in their farming community - a place where hard work and ethics were
valued.
 Life was good, until the war.  Jimmy had never experienced bigotry until it
reached out and slapped him, hard.
 He and his family had been removed from their home and sent away to a
camp, to one of many such places, along with thousands of other Japanese and
Japanese/American families.  The Maedas were sent to Gila, Arizona - dry, hot,
uncomfortable and unfamiliar.  At first they slept in a horse stall, before the camp
was completed. Compared to the stall, camp was livable, but just and it certainly
bore no resemblance to home.
 To prove himself a true American, Jimmy enlisted in the Army the day he
turned 18; to prove his patriotism to others; to give back to his parents their sense of
pride; and also to escape from the confining suffocation of the camp.
 It seemed to Jimmy Maeda he would be proving himself to others for the rest
of his life and now, the expression in the sergeant’s eyes was one of hate.  Thinking
back on it, Jimmy couldn’t remember anyone looking at him with such revulsion,
such hatred as this man now looked at him.
 He felt his stomach heave and his chest constrict.  He felt that if Sergeant
Saunders’ Thompson had been within easy reach, that Jimmy Maeda’s parents
would’ve soon been the recipients of one of those ugly black bordered telegrams
that began with “We regret to inform you....”
 Involuntarily he shivered.  Voluntarily, he backed up a step.
 “Not a Jap, Sergeant - Nisei.  My parents were born in Japan.  I was born in
California.”  He paused and met the other man’s pale, hard stare with directness and
honesty mirrored in dark, soulful eyes.
 “How ‘bout you, Sergeant...where were you born?  Where’s your home?”
 Saunders was taken aback by the boy’s attempt to keep things as they had
been since he’d found the non-com early the evening before, friendly and open.
 “The Bronx, New York City.  I live outside Chicago now,” Saunders replied,
but his body was tensed as if to run.  But run from what?  From whom?  A Jap - the
enemy - one of the monsters who’d cut his brother’s life so short and ripped his
family apart?  A monster or the same good natured kid who’d done nothing to
Saunders but help him when he was very nearly helpless and provide
companionship when it was most sorely needed?
 Hate still burned in Saunders, but he realized it wasn’t hatred for this boy.
 “Are the rest of the 442nd like you...Nisei, I mean?”  Saunders stumbled over
the unfamiliar word.
 “Yeah, except for some of the officers, like Captain Johnson,” Maeda replied.
 Saunders turned thoughtful.  The Nisei were Japanese all right, but American
first.  Saunders himself was half Dutch on his mother’s side, but it made him no less
an American - first and always, American.  Could he expect these men to feel
differently?  It wasn’t in Saunders to put himself above others.  The answer was no.
 Moments strained past becoming an hour, then two, Jimmy occupying his
time checking every inch of his equipment and reconning the perimeter of their small
camp area.  Always he was close to the injured sergeant.  They shared food and
water from the corporal’s canteen, but they shared little else.  A distance had sprung
up between them.
 Saunders remained quiet, even his body still as if to conserve energy.  His
head still buzzed with fever and even with the relative warmth of day, he shivered.
But the silence was so pronounced that birds could be heard chirping in the canopy
of trees high above and the rustling and stirrings of small animals among the thick
carpet of fallen leaves on the ground.
 The corporal, unlike Saunders, was fidgety.  He toyed with a loose button on
his shirt, chewed absently at a hang nail on his thumb, took out a comb and
nervously ran it back through straight hair so black it appeared almost blue.
Finishing, he pocketed the comb and began.
 “Do you want to talk about it?”  The question was put directly and Jimmy
met Saunders’ surprise with a shrug of his broad, square shoulders.
 “Something’s eating you up.  It helps to talk.”  It was a matter of fact
statement and one Saunders couldn’t argue with.  But he hadn’t opened up to
anyone about his brother’s death - not to friends - not even to himself yet.  The pain
was too raw.
 Jimmy continued.  “Till they come back for us, we’ve got plenty of time.
You can take as much as you need.”  He offered a slight smile, showing white teeth
in a tan face.
 Saunders looked away and it took many moments for him to speak.  When he
did, his voice was stronger and firmer than he would’ve thought possible.  He was
afraid he’d break down, an unfounded fear so it turned out.  Once he started,
Saunders couldn’t seem to stop.  Still he didn’t look at the corporal, didn’t dare, as
he related the death of his kid brother, all he knew to be true and the things he
feared were the truth.  Death most certainly, but his nightmares of possible torture
and unimaginable suffering that could’ve rendered death the least of evils.
 All the while Saunders spoke in long sentences unbroken by pauses, Jimmy
listened and only that.  The fidgeting had stopped.  While he listened, his own
thoughts and memories began to intrude.
 Saunders had come to the end of his story.  His breathing was labored and it
took many minutes to slow and become regular.  His face was even paler than it had
been and the lines around his mouth were taut.  He waited for some comment from
the corporal, but when the words came they weren’t what Saunders had expected.
 “I lost my brother too, Sarge,” he began, the tremors in the voice making
Saunders believe this occurrence to be fresh - an open wound as was his.
 “He was older, 6 years older and it happened years ago.  I was just a kid
then....”
 Saunders would have chuckled at that statement under different
circumstances.  Now he just realized how someone so young could age so quickly
when conditions warranted.  It was a shame and a sin, but....
 “An accident at our farm.  Happens all the time on farms, so they say.  A
tractor flipped over on him.  In the morning he was alive, by lunch, he was gone and
I never got to say goodbye or anything.
 I do know what you’re feeling, Sarge.  But I don’t have anyone to blame.
Don’t know if that makes it easier or not.  It’s all the same anyhow.  My brother’s
dead.  Your brother’s dead and it hurts like hell.”
 Saunders’ hand tightening around the corporal’s arm startled him.
 “Shhhh,” Saunders warned, his body straining toward a sound, far off but
coming closer.
 Jimmy listened too, flattening himself down next to the sergeant.
 Men were coming up the road from the direction opposite the one the 442nd
had taken.
 Saunders turned over onto his belly and with his good arm, brought the
Thompson over and clicked off the safety.
 Without being told, the corporal crept closer to the road for a better look,
keeping his profile flat to the ground, using the forest debris for cover.
 Coming up the road was a squad of Germans.  They were at ease, bantering
among themselves, paying little attention to their surroundings.
 Jimmy turned back to signal Saunders - 8 men and dawdling behind, one
more, a private.  He walked closer to the edge of the road, appeared to be looking
for something.  Jimmy flattened himself even closer against the damp ground.
Saunders did likewise.
 The straggler’s comrades far outdistanced him now.  He left the road and
wandered into the woods.  Leaning his rifle against a tree, he began to undo his
pants.  Jimmy grimaced in disgust.  Something in the leaves rustled and the kraut
stopped in mid-button and grabbed up his rifle.  Deciding this was too close to the
road, he walked in a bit further and scant feet from where the corporal lay and only
yards from Saunders.  Both soldiers held their breaths as the kraut relieved himself
and buttoned up.
 Directly over Saunders’ head a pair of Jays began a raucous chorus of
quarreling.  The kraut glanced up, smiling as the pair of brilliantly colored birds
continued to squawk and began to hop from branch to branch, lower and lower.
 Saunders didn’t dare breathe.  His chest hurt from the effort.
 The kraut picked up his rifle and pretended to pick off the birds. “Boom!
Boom!”
 He did an about face and walked almost into the prostrate corporal’s
outstretched legs.  Quickly overcoming his surprise, the German began issuing
orders in his native language, which Jimmy couldn’t understand, gesturing with his
rifle in the universal pantomime.
 Surprise turned to shock when the young corporal got to his feet and faced
the German.  He’d never seen a live Japanese soldier before and for all he knew,
here was one standing before him, in the flesh and in an American uniform!  For a
split second he didn’t have a clue as to what was going on.
 Saunders took advantage of the situation.  “Hey, Kraut!” he hissed.  The
German whirled around, his attention diverted long enough for the corporal to bury
the bayonet from his scabbard in the German’s back up to the hilt.
 The dead man dropped without a sound, mouth open, eyes wide.  Jimmy
retrieved his bayonet with distaste and some difficulty and picking up his rifle from
the ground, dragged the dead German into deeper cover.
 “We gotta make tracks.”  Saunders sat up, shaky from the effort and the pain
that radiated up and down his injured arm.  With effort he slung the Thompson
across his good shoulder.  Jimmy hurried over and assisted the sergeant to his feet.
 The thanks that passed between the two men was unspoken, but obvious.
The distance was closing.
 Jimmy gathered up gear and together they headed out, back toward where
Saunders had left 2nd Platoon nearly 24 hours earlier.

 Cliché aside, to say the 442nd had come to the rescue in the nick of time,
would’ve been an understatement.  Nearly out of ammo and badly outnumbered,
2nd Platoon had been minutes away from annihilation.
 By the time Saunders and Jimmy made it half way back, 2nd Platoon and the
members of the 442nd met them.  Mission accomplished, not without casualties, but
thankfully those had been relatively light.
 To hear Kirby tell it, to anyone who’d listen...”Those Nips...uh...I
mean...uh...um, those guys fought like tigers!  Like crazy men!  Man oh man, it was
really somethin’!”  For once, the rest of King 2 and the 2nd agreed with him,
whole-heartedly.

CHIP SAUNDERS’ LIST OF THINGS TO DO WHEN THE WAR IS OVER
(post script)

Make sure Chris’ body is returned home for a proper burial.

Visit the Maeda family in Salinas, California.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Copyright March, 1999, Susan Balnek-Ballard.  All rights reserved.