They came from all over—from the cornfields of Iowa to the cornfields of Indiana to the cornfields of southern Indiana. Many with nary a hair on their cheek, their pockets stuffed with comic books and pet frogs, some of them not even tall enough to peek over the latrine partitions. They were boys. They were men. Men and boys and men brought together by fate and airplanes to the battlefields of Germany in the spring of 1945. This was my platoon.
There was Lloyd Meckler, everyone’s favorite. Never without a smile on his face and a song on his saxophone, Lloyd was a living reminder that life was not something to be endured but something to be enjoyed. He stepped on a land mine while attempting to retrieve his Frisbee.
We had Rick Switchy, a tough-as-nails punk from the mean streets of Fort Wayne. Rick had grown up without a father or a mother, which is pretty weird if you think about it. Who even tucks you into bed at night—the mailman?
Jeb Crenshaw was our mortar ace. A massive bear of a man, though not literally. He was probably six-three or so, which is either smaller than a bear or around the same size. But that doesn’t take mass into account, because even a small adult bear would easily outweigh Jeb, or anybody else, for that matter. What a character!
There was what’s-his-face. You know, that one guy—his name was either Mark or Mitch, I think? He had brown hair and kind of a funny voice. Anyway, he saved my life more times than I can count. Keith?
We had our scout, Otis Hayes, a deeply troubled young man whose night terrors drew our sympathy and soap-bar beatings. Otis wasn’t just fighting the enemy out there; he was also fighting his personal demons. But in the end there was one demon he couldn’t outrun—a tank.
There was Jacques Augustin, a suave ladies’ man who, owing to the circumstances of the field, quickly adapted himself into a suave pumpkin-with-a-hole-in-it man.
And, of course, there was Klaus. We’d picked him up from a bombed-out farmhouse in Düsseldorf and made him one of our own. Every night, we played special knife games with Klaus, and his merry screams would fill our souls with hope. Oh, how we loved Klaus!
There was Wally. And Eddie Haskell. And that freckle-faced troublemaker the Beav . . . oh, wait, I’m thinking of the kids on “Leave It to Beaver.” Or “Make Room for Daddy.” One of those fucking shows.
There were the twins, Bill and Artie. Sometimes you’d think you were having a conversation with Bill, and then he’d burst out laughing and reveal—nope! You were actually talking to Artie! See? War isn’t all bad.
And, last but not least, there was my bunkmate in basic training, a gangly, towheaded kid from Indiana who remains my best friend to this very day, First Sergeant Melvin Q. Penis.
This was my platoon. Their names won’t appear in any of the history books, or any of the math books, or any of the Boxcar Children installments that I’ve read so far. But I remember them. Courageous, sexy Army guys, bound by blood, united in unity. It was these brave men—boys, really—who escorted Adolf Hitler from the Führerbunker to an unmarked airplane bound for Paraguay in the spring of 1945.
