"Yes." I said. "I do."
He looked at me suspiciously for a moment, not wanting to believe me. But he could see in my eyes that I was not putting him on. "Somehow I think you do." He said.
"The letters from Mary followed me to England when I went, although they'd sometimes take a little longer to reach me. But when late May rolled around I suddenly stopped hearing from her. I didn't know why. I thought at first that it was a screw-up with the mail but other guys were getting letters from home. Some of them were even from Eastern Washington. If they were getting their letters, why wasn't I?
"Before I had a chance to become seriously concerned about this the rumors began to fly through the division. We would be invading France soon and the 82nd and the 101st were slated to be the first in. I began to sense that the time to earn my money was coming soon.
"In the late hours of June 5, we were ordered to assemble. We were told that Eisenhower had given the order and the invasion was on for the next morning. We were a little surprised by this since it had been raining and windy for the past three days and was raining even then, but we were assured that a brief break in the weather would give us a window. My platoon, the forty men I'd trained with since my assignment, a mixed group of combat veterans and green soldiers like me, were assigned as part of a battalion tasked to take a bridge and hold it until the regular infantry, invading from the Normandy coast, could advance to us.
"At 12:30 AM, the morning of June 6th, we were loaded into the C-47s and off we went. I was in the front of the plane, near the pilots, and therefore would be one of the last to jump. I was loaded down with my pack, my rifle, my parachute and a picture of Mary I carried with me for good luck. I simply stood there with the rest of them, waiting for the signal. Finally it came. One by one we walked to the rear of the plane and jumped out, our static lines pulling open our chutes for us. Just before I went I took one last look at Mary's face, gave the picture a kiss, and then stowed it in my pack. Out I went into the night.
"There were five planes in our group and we were supposed to be dropped five miles from our objective. Our rally point was a clearing along the river. From there we were supposed to march in and assault the bridge, taking it by surprise." He snorted in disgust. "Apparently the lead pilot of our group was a little TOO good at his job. He dropped us right over the bridge itself. A bridge that was guarded by anti-aircraft guns and spotlights, a couple of tanks, and a company of German infantry with heavy and light machine guns."
"Jesus." I whispered.
"Jesus is right." He answered, drinking from his beer again. "They slaughtered most of us before we even hit the ground. People I knew intimately, people I'd trained with, my commanding officers, other greenies like me, were shot out of the air by flak shells and machine guns as we floated down. The spotlights would hit a group as they descended and tracers would arc up, blowing them to pieces. As I came down, near the rear of the group, I was forced to watch this in horror, knowing there was nothing I could do about it. I saw hundreds of flashes from the ground as they shot us out of the sky like clay pigeons at a skeet range. Well over half of us were dead by the time our feet hit the earth. Most of our company that lived through this came down around the bridge. They were shot as soon as they landed, most of them before they could even get a shot off. Some of them drowned when they landed in the river. Some got hung up in the trestles of the bridge and were picked off there.
"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.