Bastogne | Teen Ink

Bastogne

December 9, 2016
By Anonymous

It was christmas time in 1944 and the war was reaching its height. The Germans were doing everything in there power to stop the allies from advancing.Peter was part of the 101st airborne and had been there since D-Day, where he took out 5 german 108’s with his squad mates. It was now 7 months later and peter was sitting in his fox hole and he was freezing to death. It was 10 below zero and there was 2 feet of snow on the ground. The army had failed to supply very heavy winter clothing and other supplies so most of them were in a light jacket and raggedy old boots. His comrades were all freezing to some of them had frost bite and he had heard a rumor that one guy got his foot amputated because of it. Most of these problems could of been solved if they were allowed to have fires but if they did the germans would see them.
The sun was just about to go down and it was about dinner time. Peter got up out of
his freezing dirty foxhole to go get some dinner. Whatever the cook was making smelled awful. It smelled like someone had combined whatever he could find and then mixed it with the laundry water to make a so called soup. When peter got to the front of the line he held out his bowl and the cook poured that soup into it. The soup looked even grosser than it smelled. It was a brown color that resembled the color of a muddy puddle. It had some strange chunks in it that he assumed were some sort of meat although he couldn’t identify the type.  It was his first meal that day so he gobbled it down despite the look and smell. Despite being so gross looking and smelling it didn’t taste like much and he was very grateful for that. After dinner he went over and chatted with his friend James 
“Wana cigarette” James offered
  “ Sure maybe itll warm me up just a little bit” replied peter
James handed a cigarette to peter and then lit it for him.
  “Do you think anything will happen tonight” Peter asked between puffs
“ I doubt it, my guess is they are just trying to stay warm like us” James answered
“ Well if they do good luck im going to go try and get a little bit of sleep ill see you tomorrow”
Peter headed back to his fox hole where he then covered the top of the hole with some branches  and an old blanket. He crouched down and got under his makeshift roof to keep the snow off of him. As he laid his head down on the gold dirty ground he thought about his wife back in New York. He thought of the last day they had spent together before he left to go to war.
It was bright sunny summer day in New York and Peter was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper while his wife was making some eggs and hashbrowns. He heard plates hitting the table and he looked up from his newspaper to see his plate in front of him with two eggs and some hash browns they looked delicious. They smelled even better than it looked he looked at his wife and smiled, she smiled back.  He dug into his breakfast and it tasted heavenly and it tasted even better knowing that he wouldn’t eat a decent meal for months. After breakfast they decided to go for a walk since it was such a nice day that talked the entire walk the talked about everything and anything. The rest of the day was wonderful the went out for a picnic and then into downtown for the afternoon and went to every store in manhattan. Once the sun started to set they headed home where they had dinner and watched some tv until they fell asleep. That was the last time peter had been truly happy and thinking about it comforted him enough to the point he could fall asleep.
There was a huge explosion that woke him up. He jumped up so quickly he almost hit his head on his makeshift roof, he grabbed his gun and poked his head out of his foxhole to see a smoking crater 10 feet from his fox hole. He scanned the tree line looking for enemies he saw none. He got out of his foxhole slowly and constantly checking for enemies. He got out and crouch walked around from one thing of cover to the next. He was going around making sure everyone was okay so far everyone was fine. Once he had made it to everyone he leaned against a tree to relax and catch his breath. The bark of the tree felt cold against his back. He started to daydream about summer time when he was a boy.  Him and all of his friends would run around his front yard playing army. Peter would take cover behind The apple tree in his front yard and he remembered how the bark felt against his hands and all the good memories that feeling held. Peter was awoke from his daise by a whistling sound followed by a massive explosion. He dropped to the ground and covered his head with his hands. There was a series of explosions that followed and each one was closer than the last. On the final explosion peter heard a man screaming,someone had been hit. Peter laid there motionless waiting to see if another shell would hit somewhere. He waited what seemed like an eternity and then finally stood up he ran towards the screams. When he got to the origin of the screams he looked down into the foxhole and saw his friend james motionless face down in the dirt and without checking he knew that james was dead. The man screaming was a solider that Peter barely knew but he saw that the man was missing his foot and blood was pouring out of the stump. The next few minutes blurred together he had taken out his first aid kit and bandaged up the soldier's wound and then called for a medic to come treat him further. The medic arrived and gave the soldier some morphine and put a tourniquet around his leg to stop the bleeding. As the soldier as taken away writhing in agony Peter climbed out of the foxhole. He stood at the edge of the foxhole and looked down at his lifeless friend he had known james since boot camp, they had been bunk mates. He jumped with him on D-Day they had been best friends for almost 6 months now. He felt a whirlwind of emotions, he felt depressed that he had lost his best friend. Mainly he felt rage, he wanted to go take on the entire german army by himself and kill every last one of them because they had taken the one good thing he had in this war. He was so furious and so sad at the same time that all he could do was look at James and cry and curse him for dying.  Peter went back to his fox hole with a blank look in his eyes and dragging his feet behind him.
On his way back to his fox hole he heard something hit the tree right in front of him and blow dust in his face. Next a volley of bullets came flying at him, he immediately dropped to the ground and crawled behind a tree. The bullets were hitting all around him they kept coming for a solid 30 seconds more and then stopped he peaked around the tree and tried to identify the origin of the bullets. He saw movement about 50 yards in front of him. He aimed his rifle at it and fired 3 rounds. The figure fell to the ground and stopped moving. He sat there and watched for a minute waiting to see if the figure would get up,It didn’t.Peter started walking towards the lifeless figure as he got closer he saw that it was a german soldier and he was indeed dead. Peter looked down and felt pride he had got his revenge for James and had taken one of them.  He turned around and walked away from the body back towards his fox hole when he felt a sudden pain in his stomach and then heard a gunshot. He looked down and saw a hole in his body leaking blood. He fell to his knees, he couldn’t process what had just happened. After that everything went black. The next thing he knew there was a fire fight going on and he was in the middle of it. He tried to move towards his side but when he moved pain ran through his entire body like electricity through a wire. His survival depended on it so he pushed through the pain and slowly inched his way toward the tree line.Once he was about 15 yards away from the tree line one of his comrades came out and dragged him back to cover. The soldier laid him down and ran back to the fight. A medic came over and started to treat his wound but Peter didn’t see much because he passed out shortly after he arrived. When he awoke he was looking at a bright white ceiling. Looking around he saw that he was in a hospital surrounded by other wounded soldiers. A sudden jolt of pain went through him as he tried to sit up. Lifting up his shirt he saw that there were stitches where the hole used to be. A nurse came by and checked up on him.
“Where am i” asked  Peter
“ You’re in a hospital in New York” replied the nurse
“ Does my wife know’ Peter said
“ Yes we just notified her that you are here and you’re up”
A wave of joy washed over him as he realized he was home and safe. He started crying out of joy and relief he was home finnaly.


The author's comments:

It is about the 101st airborne in world war 2


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