"I landed in a swampy area about three hundred yards from the bridge. It was dark where I came down and I got out of my parachute as quick as I could. Five other soldiers, others that had jumped with me from the fronts of the planes, joined me. Only one of us had combat experience, a sergeant from one of the other planes. He ordered us towards the bridge although even then he must have known it was hopeless. The machine gun fire had died down and had been replaced by the sound of rifles firing single shots. German rifles.
"By the time we got there the Germans had already killed everybody who'd landed near them. There were bodies everywhere, nearly all of them connected to the black parachute harness. German soldiers were walking around putting bullets in the bodies of those that were still moving. As I watched, a German soldier, obviously an officer, gave an order and a platoon of them began moving towards us.
"We bugged out as fast as we could, heading for our rally point since there was nowhere else to go. When we got there we found that well over half of our battalion had met a similar fate. Some were dropped in a swamp and drowned, some had been dropped in the middle of a town near the bridge and had been massacred as my company had. We had a mixed group of people from six or seven different companies with the task of taking a bridge that had already been alerted to our presence.
"The new commander of the battalion, a Captain who was the most senior officer there, ordered us to begin marching. We did.
"On the march to it all I could think about was Mary. I had love waiting for me when I got home. All I had to do was live through this war and I could claim what was mine. We hit the bridge at about 3:00 AM, going up against soldiers that were waiting for us. It was a vicious fight that lasted nearly an hour. The machine guns and the tanks cut down scores of us. Finally we pushed them away from the bridge and destroyed the tanks. When we finally stood on that bridge and started to dig in we were less than a quarter of what was originally tasked to take it. Somehow through all of that I'd lived. I didn't even have a scratch on me. I was years older than I'd been a few hours before, but I was alive.
"We were counter-attacked twice that night by German reinforcements. We fought them off each time but lost more and more people each time. We held that bridge for three days, all the time not knowing if we were fighting a hopeless battle, not knowing if the invasion had gone forward as planned or if it had been thrown back into the sea by Rommel's beach defenses. We held on and I thought of Mary and what was waiting for me when I got home; love and marriage and a family. I had to live, I simply had to.
"Finally, on June 9th at about three o'clock, our relief came. Regular infantry pushed forward from the beach and I'm ashamed to say that we actually fought a ten-minute battle with them before the both of us figured out what was going on. Ten people were killed in that friendly battle. But we were relieved. They took charge of the bridge and we, those of us that were left, were escorted back to safety. I was alive, for the time being anyway.
"The beachhead expanded and our troops finally broke out of Normandy. Understandably the mail was a little slow getting to us but as I waited at base camp day after day I figured that when the mail finally DID get through, there would have to be a letter from Mary in it. She'd never gone this long without writing before.
"When it finally got there I was handed three letters. Two of them were from my parents but one had Mary's handwriting on the front. I ripped it open before I even left the mail line. It was dated May 28th, 1944."
He gazed meaningfully at me. "To this day I still have the entire text of that letter memorized."
"A dear John letter?" I asked.
He sighed. "Dear Jack." He recited. "This is the hardest letter I've ever had to write in my life but I feel that I owe you an explanation. I know that we said we would love each other forever and that we would be married when you returned from the war. But we've been apart for a long time and I have grown up since you've left. I've grown up enough to realize that what I thought I wanted when I was fifteen is not really what I wanted. You're one of the sweetest, most understanding men I've ever met in my life but, unfortunately I've found true love in another while you've been gone. Bob Simpson and I have been spending a lot of time together lately and I've realized that it is he that I am in love with. I hate to give you this news while you are away at the war and it seems so impersonal to write it in a letter instead of telling you face to face but the fact is that I must tell you. Bob and I are in love and I feel that we will be getting married soon.
When you return from wherever you are Bob and I will most likely be married. I felt that I owed you this letter and I am truly sorry that I led you on before you left. Hoping you understand and with sincerest apologies, Mary."
He stared at me angrily. "YOU," He said, "Are Bob Simpson. And this time you're after my daughter instead of my wife. But this time you won't have her."
I licked my lips and took a deep breath. "Tell me about Bob Simpson." I said.
"What's to tell?" He asked. "He's you. Why should I have to tell you about the kind of person you are?"
"Obviously," I said, ignoring his categorization of me, "Mr. Simpson didn't marry your wife."
"Of course he didn't!" Mr. Blackmore yelled. "Mary was a good-looking, confused girl who's intended was away fighting the war. He wasn't interested in Mary's love. He was interested in her body!"
"Tell me about him." I repeated.
He swallowed the last of his beer and set the empty down on the table. "Do you have another?" He asked.
Wordlessly I got up, retrieved the empties and carried them to the kitchen. I tossed them into the garbage can and retrieved two more from the refrigerator. I carried them back to the living room and handed one to Mr. Blackmore. He popped it open and took a drink.
"Tell me about him." I said again, opening my own beer.
He sighed. "Bob Simpson was one of those kids that was real popular in school. He always said the right thing to whoever was talking to him, always said whatever that person wanted to hear. He was like a commission salesman, in fact that's what he became later on in life, selling used cars down at Zed Viermore's car lot. Did real well at it too.
"He was two years ahead of me in school. He graduated in 1942, when the war was really gearing up but he didn't enlist in the service. Oh no, not Bob. He stayed at home and took over the jobs that those who left to fight had vacated. He seemed to have no interest in going off to fight and the men in the town used to make fun of him, call him names about this but Bob paid them no heed. Bob had a high lottery number in the draft and just counted on the fact that the war would probably be over before they ever got around to sending him off.
"Bob you see, had discovered a situation that he could take to his advantage. He'd found that with the war going on there was a distinct shortage of men his age around while there was a distinct advantage to the amount of women that were lonely and scared. He used to make friends with them and eventually seduce them, leaving them like yesterday's trash once he got what he wanted from them. The same thing that YOU apparently discovered."
I had nothing to say to him. I couldn't deny what he was accusing me of.
"To tell you the truth, I used to envy Bob before I shipped off. It never occurred to me that he would one day be after MY girl and you couldn't help but be impressed by someone who could have the experiences that he was having. He never told anyone what he was doing, mind you, he was very discreet about it, but we all knew all the same. He did it with married women twice his age whose husbands were off in Europe or Japan. He did it with the fiances of younger men or even their wives after their husband's had shipped out. God knows how many he did but it was a lot. Some of them, usually the older ones, knew it was just a physical thing, a replacement until their husbands came home, but the younger ones sometimes fell in love with him. And he never tried to convince them that was a bad thing either. He broke more hearts than can probably be counted during World War II, marking off those he'd conquered on a little list somewhere."