Saturday, April 21, 2007

Shhh... ! Ernie Pyle's unhuman quiet ....!

Whether it's the aftermath of a conventional WW II battle, late summer of 1944, in Normandy, France ...

Or for that matter, the morning after the equally conventional Battle of Binh Son I ... Vietnam, nearly 23 years later.

As ERNIE PYLE experienced this "battlefield aftermath" so often in WW II.. . so too, have so many of us over the years!

Adapted from page 558, of the large print version of Ernie's War, where Pyle's description gives me the same sensation I had the morning of April 22, 1967:

"From all these things you can tell that the battle has been recent -- from these and from the men dead so recently that they seem to be merely asleep.

"And also from the unhuman quiet. Usually battles are noisy for miles around.

"But in this recent fast warfare a battle sometimes leaves a complete vacuum behind.

"The Germans [or the NVA/PAVN over 22 years later] will stand and fight it out until they see there is no hope. Then some give up [or if NVA/PAVN die and get their lifeless bodies dragged off by their comrades, instead!], and rest pull and run for miles.

"Shooting stops.

"Our fighters move on after the enemy, and those who do not fight, but move in the wake of the battles will not catch up for hours.

"There is nothingh left behind but the remains -- the lifeless debris, the sunshine and the flowers and utter silence.

"An amateur who wanders in this vacuum of the rear of a battle has a terrible sense of loneliness.

"Everything is dead -- the men, the machines [later on in the DMZ in my case!], the animals -- and you alone are left alive."

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