Maybe I should start at the beginning. My name is Staff Sergeant Robert Deal. I am an infantryman in the U.S. Army. My story begins with the Battle of Cherbourg. The company commander sent my squad out to rescue another squad caught behind enemy lines. We brought two medics with us in case of casualties.
The repeated recoil of my sub-machine gun slammed into my shoulder, and the German I was aiming at fell, full of holes. Bullets whizzed past my ears as I ran past a set of medics, carrying a stretcher with a wounded man on it. The man was missing his left arm and left leg. I heard a ding, and when I looked back, the medic carrying the back side had just taken a bullet in the head. I tripped as I saw this and fell into a foxhole. I peeked over the hole at the German MG-42. It was focused on my squad, which was on the other side of the road, about fifty yards back.
How the hell'd I get so far ahead of them? I wondered. No matter, I'll just have to take care of that MG before I can get them over to me. I waited until the MG had to reload and then sprinted to the next foxhole. I repeated this. The next time that the gun had to reload, the barrel had overheated. They opened the side of the perforated barrel to change out; I crouch-sprinted to the shell hole closest to them. By the time I had gotten there, I was in grenade range. I heard someone yell something in German, and a grenade hit my helmet. I knew I was dead, but I might as well just try to get away. I ran toward the MG-42's flank, and since the grenade was a high explosive grenade, I still felt the shock and was plunged forward behind the sandbags. The Germans there spotted me and scrambled for their rifles. In my awkward position on the ground, I managed to get my gun pointing at one of them. I pulled the trigger. The first German fell; his arm was literally in pieces, and he had a huge hole in his head. One of the rounds slammed through his arm and skimmed the second German, also in the arm. I scrambled up as fast as I could and pointed my gun at him. This man raised his one usable arm and started rambling out words I didn't understand. I had heard many German voices from propaganda films and the sort, but this man wasn't speaking German. My squad came up to the MG and had their guns on him in a split second. "Parker! Come here!" I ordered. A skinny man about the age of 24 came up, his M-1 lazily slung around his shoulder, and his .45 pointed at the POW. "You know languages. What's this guy speaking?" I asked. Parker listened to him talk and thought for a minute. He gave me a puzzled look.
"Sarge, this doesn't make sense. . . . He's speaking Russian!" Parker said. I was surprised. Parker asked him a few questions. "He says that the Germans took him and put him into a mixed battalion of troops with a few officers to watch after them and make sure they know the rules." Parker pointed his pistol at a dead man wearing an officer's cap a few feet away, out of sight of the Russian.
"Ask him why the hell they shot our medic," I ordered. Parker asked the man.
"He said, 'He's an enemy, and my commander didn't tell us not to,'" Parker replied.
"Tell him that it's against the rules, and his commander's dead," Parker told him. The Russian looked surprised. He sputtered a few more things out.
"He didn't know his commander was dead. Well, Sarge, what should we do with him?"
"Hmm. . . . There could be more non-Germans in the area, so Parker, you stay with the squad. Taylor, you take this man back to a medic, get him patched up quickly, and then take him to regiment for interrogation." Another man stepped forward. He flicked his cigarette away, grabbed the prisoner and started back for regiment. "Taylor!" I called out. He looked back at me for a minute. His eyes were filled with hatred, for his best friend had been killed by that machine gun emplacement and had to be replaced. By me. "If he doesn't make it back alive, it's gonna be your ass," I finished. Taylor nodded and walked back to the nearest medic, his Springfield '03 cocked and pointed at the prisoner's forehead the whole time. "Well," I sighed, "let's keep moving." I reloaded my Thompson and ran down the road with my squad.
"Cover!" I yelled as a shell went over my head and the heads of my men. I managed to make it into a house on the side of the road with Parker, but the remains of my squad were stuck in shell holes in the road. "Parker, we've got to find a way to flank that tank!" I said as I peeked around the corner at the humongous Tiger tank blocking the road.
"Sarge, this isn't our mission! Why do we have to take on the tank?" Parker complained. I looked at him strangely. I then pointed down the road where the shell had hit. There was now a collapsed building blocking our path.
"Because if we tried to make it past that building, we'd be sitting ducks for that Tiger! Plus our squad's stuck in a hole in the middle of the road, and we can't reach 'em." I yelled back at him. "Got any grenades?" I asked. Parker nodded and handed me two pineapple grenades. "All right. . . ." I looked around for a minute and spotted some stairs. "Wait here," I ordered. I climbed up to the third floor of the building. I saw a big piece of concrete that had collapsed from the roof. I looked around some more and then went down to get Parker. He was busy shooting at the infantry accompanying the Tiger. "Knock it off, we've got work to do." I said. We went back up to the third floor and worked together to get the piece of concrete out a window and to another building. We made a bridge of some sort. "I'll go first, you follow once I see if it's safe." I slowly walked across the piece into the next building. Once I made it, Parker started across. He made it, and we dragged the piece of concrete into our building as to not alert the Germans of our position. I ran to a window and I could see the Tiger in the same spot, shooting his machine gun at our men. There was nothing in sight besides the Tiger and the infantry.
"Sarge!" Parker yelled. "I found some stairs!" I followed him and we successfully sneaked up on the Tiger. There was no firing anymore; the five or so infantry were trying to get closer to my squad quietly. I told Parker to get one of the Germans in his sights and wait for my signal. I quietly climbed on top of the tank an got behind the MG-42 on it. I was sitting on the hatch, so I didn't think they'd open it up.
"Now!" I yelled. The MG-42 started sawing through the infantry. Once I had killed most of them, I aimed at the last one just to see Parker shoot him through the eye. It was about this time that the hatch started pushing up on me. My squad stood up and started cheering. "Get down, you idiots!" I ordered as the internal machine-gun started rattling. Most of the squad ducked, but one man by the name of Richard Nelson got filled with lead. The machine gun stopped and a huge amount of force was exerted that pushed me off the tank hatch. A shot rang out the split second the German raised his head up near the tank hatch; blood, brains, and bone were all splattered all over the tank hatch opening. I pulled the pin on one of my grenades and threw it down the hatch; it exploded and I heard the cries of the tank crew. I got off the back of the tank and put another grenade down the fuel catch on the back of the tank. "Parker, now's the time to run like hell!" We took off. The explosion of the grenade then set the tank on fire. My squad started cheering. Parker chuckled. "What's so funny?" I asked.
"Oh it's nothing, Sarge. I just haven't run that fast since my girl saw me with her best friend." I laughed a bit at that too. I heard a rifle cock and I turned. Sure enough, there was Taylor with his scoped Springfield. The shell fell on the ground next to me. I heard him speak for the first time.
"You're welcome." He said angrily. He walked off to the building blocking our path. We followed. That night, I was put in for a bronze star by someone. I wasn't sure who, though. Rumors were spread about who did it, and fingers were pointed at a lot of people in my platoon. The most popular rumor was that Taylor put it in . . . Nah, he hates me.