Finally finished this strong memoir of an artilleryman, Corporal Nathaniel Blumberg, in Charlie Battery, 666th Field Artillery Battalion. My father was in Baker Battery, so the memoir has a special place in my heart.
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six (The Revelation of Saint John the Divine, Chapter 13:18).
Several points seemed to stand out in my mind:
1.) The pre-war experiences he described at Utah State University, Logan, seemed very remote from the distance of more than half a century. I found that puzzling, because I once worked a year at University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and I've visited the campus at Logan, so there should have been some familiarity of place, if nothing else, but it just didn't seem to be there. I can only conclude that pre-and post-war college experiences - for everyone - were of quite different natures: the war changed everything, of course. And also, probably even in his own mind, the Logan years probably seem dreamlike and distant, given the European experience.
2.) Blumberg's descriptions about the Battle of the Bulge helped clarify impressions I had received as a child listening to my father's stories. I had been under the impression, from childhood, that my father had actually been trapped behind enemy lines, in hostile country, for nearly a week, but apparently that wasn't the case. Blumberg and my father had been thrust near the forefront of battle, with confused territories of control causing great apprehension, but never completely cut off from American control.
3.) Reading Blumberg's book, I now understand why my father ended up in Salzburg, Austria. It always seemed rather irrational that my father ended up there, so far from Belgium (but then no one ever said the U.S. military was necessarily rational). He described the great beauty of the place, and an adventure trying to learn to ski (hmmm.... in summer 1945? - maybe THAT was the problem), that made him swear off the slopes for the rest of his life.
4.) It was interesting reading Blumberg's reactions (and the reactions of the other soldiers) to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Myself, I co-wrote a letter of complaint to the Smithsonian Museum in 1995, complaining of revisionist, ahistorical efforts to portray the atomic bombings as exercises in racism, etc.
5.) Blumberg's epilogue, which describes coming to terms with forgiveness for the German soldiers who were once his bitterest enemies, was very moving.
I remember, as an 8-year-old child in 1964, being crestfallen because I finally learned that, despite popular TV shows like 'Combat', the U.S. was no longer at war with Germany. I'm sure Blumberg was relieved, however, that the war ended considerably sooner than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment