BY LAWRENCE HALL

A Tale of Herschkowitz

602nd Tank Destroyer Battalion 

My father, who was a master sergeant in the Second World War, told this story of one of his armored car’s crew, Herschkowitz. Towards the end of the war, probably in the area of Zwickau, Herschkowitz was flirting with some pretty German girls. This was probably one of the sanest moments in Europe in 1945.

Later my father said, “Herschkowitz, I didn’t know you spoke German.”

Herschkowitz replied, “I don’t, sergeant, but I know Yiddish and we all understood each other pretty well.”

Thus endeth the lesson.

A Japanese Army Cap

“A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East”

– Kipling

Long, long ago in a land far away

I met some children playing on a river bank

One little boy wore a Japanese Army cap

Faded and old—I wondered who wore it first?

I tried to buy it from him—an MPC dollar?

No.

Five dollars?

No.

Ten dollars?

Laughter and another no.

Twenty good American MPC dollars?

No.

We continued our patrol up to Cambodia

And back again

I did not leave my bones in Viet-Nam

Nor even my cap

                              (I was a fool all the same)

A Carrier of Bodies

“My stretcher is one scarlet stain”

– Robert W. Service, “The Stretcher Bearer”

In illo tempore:

I don’t know that anyone shouted, “Corpsman up!”

Like in the movies; I was already up

There, where smoking metal scraps stopped in some kid’s flesh

Red fragments of flesh screaming in the sun

Later:

Carrying bodies of literature was impossible

But I tried; Wordsworth and Keats during the day

Holes in the patients and in sterile drapes

Red fragments of flesh in the E.R. at night

Now:

In the evenings I carry Wordsworth outside

And my older self, to a chair at dusk