PAGE 13
I
SOME MEN MUST DIE
by jim
We got into ranks as the white dust covered our shined
boots with a dull film. The sun was hot and vtfiite and our
shadows were black on the v\4iite dust. We fell in in platoon
formation opposite the vtfiitepainted orderly room. There was a
vtfiite picket fence around the green grass by the orderly room,
and hanging on the fence was the cartridge belt with a ragged
stain, maroon colored and turning black around the edges of the
stain from the sun.
-Platoon, tensh-iMiat! Report!
-F irs t squad all present an accounted for Sir!
-Second squad all present accounted for sirp!
-T h ird squad all presen n accounted for sirr!
Accounted for. The squad was one man short, but he
was accounted for. Everyone knew where he was.
-Rest. But don't move outta ya places.
-H is belt is still there, said Attadell, the acting squad
leader.
-Y eah it is, I said. I looked up.at the hot blue sky and at
the barracks and back to the white picket fence where the
cartridge belt was hanging with the dark stain on it, but I didn't
want to look.
-Jeeze but it's hot, Attadell said, shifting his rifle. You
ever been this hot before?
-N o , I said, it don't get this hot in Ohio.. What the hell
are they doing now? Why can't we get going and get it over
with?
-T h e y ought to put that belt somewiieres else, or scrub
it off, Attadell said.
I saw Maclntire look at the belt and then real quick down
at his boots in the dust and the butt of his rifle on the ground
with wrfiite dust on the oiled stock. Then he looked at Ferio, the
Mex, and back down at his boots. Ferio, he looked real sick and
his eyes were big and white and he looked straight ahead at the
man's neck in the next squad. Nobody said anything and then
the sergeant came back.
-Troop...
-Platoon...
-Tensh-hut! Ryeet face! Right sholdah harms! Forward
harch!
Boots made a cadence beat in the dust as we marched
dowtfi the company street and I couldn't see the wiiite picket
fence with the cartridge belt on it but I knew it was still there.
Dust rose in swirls from Attadale's in front of me and the bright
sun and the vriiite road and the dust made a dull ache in my
eyes. Our shadows followed along the side of the road, legs
flashing black in rhythm, standing up on the wrfiite shingled side
of Baker Troop supply room, lying down again on the roadside
past Group Headquarters, past the post office, past the PX
where men in khaki leaned on a telephone pole waiting for the
bus to Junktown and wondered why we were marching on a
Saturday afternoon. They smoked cigarettes and yelled at us.
-H e y fellers, lookit - soljers!
-G e e Whiz, Ma, a parade!
Then the captain looked at them and they shut up. And
the sound of the boots kept up, tramp, tramp in the dust, and the
M c C afferty
sun was hot in my face and sweat ran in cold drops down my
arms and my fingers ached from gripping the rifle butt too tight.
Then we came to the white church with a squat steeple on top
and we stopped and stacked arms and filed into the church,
pulling off our go-to-hell caps and sticking them in our web belts,
and sat down on hard, darkwnod pews. It was stuffy and warm in
the church, but not as hot as it was out in the sun. The casket
was up in front. It had an American flag on it but there weren't
any flowers. Corporal Treadway and Corporal Goodwin stood at
parade rest at each end of the casket.
Then a chaplain came in and said Mass sort of singing
like, but I didn't understand it so I didn't listen and I thought what
does it feel like to get shot? One minute he and the other Mex
Ferio had been messin around and then bang! He turned clean
over in the air and landed on his face in the dust on the range
and screamed something in Mex and then he was dead with a
big hole in his back and blood spreading all over his green
fatigues and his cartridge belt and into the v#iite sand. And Ferio
he just stood there with his mouth open breathing loud and
looking at the dead Mex lying there with blood all over him.
Ferio's rifle was still smoking in his hand and he threw it away
from him and just sat down where he was and puked all down
his front and began to cry and yell. Then the captain ran over
and said who fired that shot, then he saw the Mex with blood all
over lying there and Ferio crying and yelling and he said Jesus
Christ real soft and we all stood there looking at the blood and
the sand and I felt weak and cold and sweaty and sick. The
captain and Corporal Goodwin grabbed the Mex and lifted him
into a jeep and went tearin off the down road toward camp and
we could see the dust from the jeep a long time after it was
gone, and Ferio just lay there in the dust in his vomit and cried
and shook like he was cold in the hot sun. There was a patch of
blood in the sand vtfiere the Mex had been and it looked like a
rose lying in the vtfiite sand. Then lieutenant Gault came over
and kicked dirt over the red bloodstain and told us to get into the
six-bys to go back to camp...
The chaplain said a prayer for the Mex and crossed
himself and stuck out his hand and the service was over. We
went out into the sunshine and the post band was there and a
black caisson with four black horses and another black horse
with a saddle and there were boots in the stinrups backwards but
nobody rode the horse but the Mex's ghost I guess.
We fell in by the stacked rifles and unstacked them and
l ieutenant Gault was mad because we did it so sloppy and he
said we looked like we'd been in the Army for three weeks
istead of three months. Then we presented arms and the
noncoms came out carrying the casket and put it on the caisson
with the flag over it; they had on white gloves and they marched
beside the caisson and the band played real slow and sad and
we marched at open ranks only slower than marching and it was
hard to keep step. We marched a long time towards the west
gate and the sun was hot on my face and going down so that I
figured it must be about 3 o'clock and I wshed we'd march faster
and get it over with so I could get to Junktown before dark. The
band played slow and then it stopped and the drummer beat
cadence on the rim of the drum and all you could hear was the
pong-pong-pong of the drum and the clop of the horses' hooves
on the road and the slow muffled thud of the boots in the dust
and the blood in your head. Pretty soon we came to the west
gate and there was a big black Chrysler hearse waiting outside
the gate by the side of the road with the back doors open. We
stopped and presented arms and the firing squad from the third
platoon lined up facing the caisson
-Port...harms! Load! Ready...aim...fire!
-Bang!
The sun was above the trees and hot and yellow and
whirling and the dust looked red but I knew it wasn't.
-Bang!
My arms and fingers ached from holding the rifle at
present arms for so long
-Bang!
Then the bugler began to play taps and the sound was
sweet and sort of lost sounding in the wXiite afternoon. I thought
of the little Mex and the empty bunk two down from mine with
the mattress rolled up now, and of his mother maybe waiting in
the doorway with a white apron on when the hearse came up to
where he had lived in San Antonio, Texas.
-Order...harms!
The noncoms lifted the casket with the flag on it out of
the caisson and carried it over and put it in the hearse and
slammed the doors loud. Then the hearse drove away and a
cloud of white dust ballooned up and followed it down the road
and across the bridge of the reservation. And we marched back
to the troop area quicker and were dismissed.
I sat down on my bunk and Attadell sat down beside me
and gave me a cigarette and we just sat there taking deep drags
and looking at the dust on our boots I didn't know if I really
wanted to go to Junktown or not.
Jim McCafferty lives in Astoria He explains the title:
"Some Men Must Die comes from a graduation speech by the
commanding officer of the Cavalry Replacement Training
Center, Fort Riley, Kansas in August of 1944. As best I
remember, he said that we all must realize, in this terrible and
consuming war to eradicate oppression and conquest, that some
men must die that this just cause might succeed. So I, at 17,
was sitting there thinking hey, I don't care how just your cause
may be, I have no intention of dying for it. I imagine that every
one there had the same sentiment. Luckily, World War II was
wnding down by then, and I didn't. Not all were so fortunate "
NOT
JUST
ANY
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