First of all thank you to my two reviewers mean s abunch to me and that made sit Down and write this
Please enjoy and please pray for the victims of the #CPHSHOOTING
Germany April 1945
"Janovec, Janovec" Speirs walked up the stairs calling out for the private who was in possession of his recent loot.
On his way up the stairs he ran into Amy, "You might not want to…" Amy didn't get to finish her sentence, Speirs just stormed past her
"Well it's your own ding dang fault then" Amy mumbled and walked outside
Amy stepped outside and turned her face up towards the sun. The 101st airborne was more or less an occupation force only sending out harassing patrols. The weather was nice and the war was almost over, at least it felt that way.
Further down the street Katie and Mia was talking to Winters and Lipton. Mia noticed Amy watching them and she gave her a small wave and Amy waved back, she took a step towards the group, but was almost knocked over by Speirs who was storming out of the door.
"I did not need to see that" Speirs said
"I told you not to go up there" Amy smiled
Speirs followed Amy and when they reached the group Speirs turned to Winters "I thought Eisenhower issued and order of fraternization" Speirs grumbled
"I know, but if you haven't noticed there are too many DP's and too many GI's with too much money" Winters said and saluted his men and walked of.
Katie sighed and motioned for Mia to follow her, the hospital was busy to many drunk GI*s and too many motor vehicles. Every day they send some poor bastard to the main hospital. Katie knew she had to talk to Sink about the problem.
A jeep came speeding down the small road and stopped beside Amy, Katie and Mia. A soldier jumped out of the jeep and removed her sun glass's
"Lane" Mia jumped up and down
"I sure am glad to see you" Katie hugged Lane and Amy smiled and hugged lane
Lane looked at the girls, they looked happier and healthier than the last time she saw them. The sun and the good German food had done wonders for them.
"It's not that I am not glad to see you, but where is Nixon" Lane asked the girls
"Giving a current event lecture" Amy told her and motioned towards the town square.
Lane waved at the girls and headed towards the square when she reached the square she stopped and hid behind a fountain, it gave her the opportunity to study Nixon. He looked like hell. He had been drinking, lane could tell by his tussled, sloppy look, he looked like had worn the same clothes for weeks, not bothering to change or wash.
Luz noticed Lane and started to say something, but Lane shook her head, she wasn't ready to face Nixon yet.
"Has begun to assemble food packages state side, to those European families in dire need, which must be all of them…So write to your family and remind them to donate it will be much appreciated" Nixon looked at the men, some were listening to him and others were looking at something behind the fountain.
Nixon looked back down at his clipboard "I am sure you all will be happy to hear that Oklahoma is still playing on Broadway"
The men where all glee full and Luz started to sing the chorus from Oklahoma motioned for the men to stop halfway thru the chorus. Poor O'Keefe who sat in front of him performed a solo in his light voice.
Christenson asked the poor replacement if he was sitting on his bayonet and made a joke about how he should leave the singing to Luz. Unless he wanted to sing a duet with Luz.
Nixon smiled and continued "Rita Hayworth is getting married...Abbot and Costello" Nixon turned a few pages over.
"War time news the Resistance in the Ruhr pocket is grumbling looks like there might be a break out in Remagen. Apparently, the Krauts forgot to blow up one of their bridges when they headed back over the Rhine. I guess the boys in the 17th Air borne did alright after all" Lane could hear the relief in Nixon's voice.
"We would be in the Berlin if it was us instead of them, "Luz said
"If it was us the war would be over and we would all be state side" Lane stepped out from behind the fountain.
Nixon dropped the cliff board and in step, he swiped Lane of her feet, hugged her close to him, and gave her a deep kiss. "Oh god sweet heart…oh I missed you so much," He whispered to her
Lane hugged him back "I missed you too"
Lane took Nixon's hand and dragged him towards the house Lane shared with Amy. Lane dragged him into her bedroom and started to take of Nixon's dirty uniform. Nixon pulled at Lane shirt, his hands were shaking and Lane had to help him.
"Come on, you need a bath and afterwards we are going to talk about your drinking" Lane told Nixon, who just nodded, he was willing to agree to anything as long as Lane would stay with him.
On April 18th 325,000 Germans surrendered and that send the 101st Air borne en route to Bavaria as allied headquarters attached the division to the seventh army in southern Germany in its advance to secure Hitler's mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. No one knew if Hitler actually intended to fortify the Bavarian Alps, but Eisenhower wasn't taking any chances.
The sight of the Germans who had surrendered was magnificent; they still marched in the middle of the Auto bahn.
The four girls shared a jeep they were all talking about what they were going to do once the war was over.
Katie and Mia agreed that they would both continue to work with wounded
Vets' once state side. Lane knew she wanted to continue to work with intelligence, maybe for the OSS.
Amy sighed she didn't knew what she wanted to do "I don't know I think I will stay in the army"
The convoy stopped in Buchloe for the night. The first thing Winters did was to gather his officers; the standard operating procedure was to dispatch reconnaissance patrols whenever the battalion stopped.
"I want to send out some patrols, I want Dog here in town and Easy and fox in the woods2 Winters said and Speirs, Amy and Lipton saluted him
"Easy takes the north-west 1st and 2nd platoon in the woods 3rd swing around" Speirs told his officer and Lipton called out for Talbert in order to get it done.
Speirs walked over to Amy "I want you to be careful and do not take any unnecessary chance, if you run into any resistance; I want you to delay them and the return to town for backup"
Amy nodded and ordered her men to gather around her.
The patrol was walking thru the woods it was Erie quiet. Amy had Shifty and McClung as lead scouts and Bull and O'Keeffe brought up the rear.
Bull noticed O'Keeffe was jumpy and gave him a hard time about it, telling him they could hear his heart pound all the way in Arkansas.
Perconte was looking around "Hey George, kind of reminds you Bastogne"
Luz looked at Perco and rolled his eyes "Yeah, now that you mention it, except of course there is no snow, we got warm grub in our bellies, and the trees aren't fucking exploding from Kraut artillery, but yeah Frank, other than that it's a lot like Bastogne"
Frank was glad his best buddy agreed "Yeah"
Luz took a drag of his cigarette "Bull smack him for me please" and Bull did just that
Amy ordered the men to settle down, the woods were all quiet and it seemed like, even all the animals had left this part of the woods.
O Keefe made a remark about how quiet it was and Perconte agreed with him. It was scary and it felt like scene from a horror movie. Amy was just waiting for the killer to attack them.
The patrol walked into a clearing and there it was, the Camp, the men all became quiet and Christenson lost his lunch.
Amy turned to Perconte, who was the best runner "Go get Speirs, Nixon, Winters, Katie and do not let Nixon get here without Captain Easterday.
Perco ran off towards town. Amy walked up to the fence and tried to talk to the prisoners, but they wouldn't talk to her and she realized it was because of her uniform, so she removed her helmet and let down her hair, that made the difference, some of the men cried and some called out the names of their daughters and wife's.
…
Perconte ran into town and asked for Winters and Speirs, no one knew where they were and Frank was getting desperate, he knew if he came back without the officers Amy had ordered him to bring out to the camp, he was a dead man.
Finally, he found Winters "Major Winters, we found something on the patrol and ahh, we came across this…"
"What, what Frank, Frank what is it?" Winters asked him
Frank was frantic, he didn't have words to describe, what it was they had found "I don't know Sir, I don't know"
The officer and the remainder of the second battalion was ordered on to trucks, and when the battalion pulled up to the Camp, Winters knew, nothing would ever have prepared him for the sight that met them.
Skeleton like men gathered around the fence and the gate to the camp. They were all wearing striped clothing, most of which was torn and worn. Their heads shaved and most of them were missing most of their teeth, the whole camp wrapped in a stench of death, rotten corpses and general decay.
Winters stepped of the jeep, he was about to order Christenson to cut the chain that held the gate together, preventing the prisoners from escaping.
"Stop, Major Winters, sir" Mia stepped forward
"We have to make sure these people stay in the camp, they can't wander of and scatter. They probably have typhus, cholera and other contagious diseases, we need to keep them here and Sir no one feeds them, if we starting giving them food they will eat themselves to death, we have to put them on a special diet, only food with live bacteria, like sour kraut, yoghurt, quark and such"
Winters nodded and ordered Christenson to open the gate. Winters walked in with the men following him and he realized he needed a translator, so he could talk to the prisoners and send for Liebgott.
Nixon walked next to Winters with Lane hot on his heels, she knew what the place would do to Lew and wanted to be near him when he finally realized, why they were fighting the Germans.
Nixon stared at the men emerging thru the smoke from the burning buildings, some carrying what looked like death bodies. Nixon was paralyzed, the amount of emotion that ran thru him at that very moment was indescribable, and he felt helpless, shocked, rage against the Germans, sadness and sorrow.
What these people had been thru, couldn't even be described and it made his problems seem insignificant.
Nixon turned around and there she was, his reason for existing, the woman who made it worth living and he had done the most unforgivable a man could ever do and here she was, just looking at her, made Nixon feel like it was all going to be ok.
The men were helping the starved men and handed them blankets and spare rations. Mia tried to stop the men and finally Katie ordered the men to stop finally she had enough.
Winters, Lane and Nixon were talking to one of the prisoners,
Liebgott asked the questions and translated "he said the guards left this morning, they burned some of the barracks with prisoners still inside them… alive"
"Jesus Christ" Nixon mumbled
Liebgott listened to the prisoner and translated "Some of the prisoners tried to stop them, and the guards shot them, they didn't have enough ammunition to kill all the prisoners, so they shot as many as they can, the locked the gate and headed south.
"Someone in town must have told them we were coming" Nixon said
"I don't think so," someone said
Winters told Liebgott to ask what the place was and why the prisoners was there. The prisoner told them that it was a camp for unwanted people, Jews, gypsies, poles and so on. At that, very moment every officer, gathered around the young man knew why they were fighting, why they had given up their life to travel half way around the world to fight.
Katie came running "Winters, can you get the men to rally around me? So I can tell them what to do"
Winters looked at Speirs "Get it done, I need to call Sink"
Speirs got a hold of welsh, Lipton and McMillan, they found the commander of Fox and the battalion gathered around the Easy Doc.
"Look, we need to triage these men, those who can walk, those who can wait to get treatment, and those who need urgent treatment and last those who are dead. The live inmates need to be placed by the gate, leave the dead in the huts, they will buried tomorrow, ok boys move out"
Katie and Mia started with men already gathered at the gate.
Mia had her trusted stethoscope, and she was examining a man, when she felt a hand on her shoulder, Mia looked up. Lipton looked down at her, she squeezed his hand "I am ok, I can handle this"
Lipton nodded and continued his walk around the camp; everywhere he looked, there were dead bodies and smoking remains of buildings. He stumbled upon Malarkey, who was looking at one of the dead bodies wrist and the both noticed the tattoo. All of the men in the camp had tattoo's, they had been branded like cattle.
This camp was nothing like Lipton had ever even imagined, he couldn't comprehend how such evil existed, what kind of sick minds had planned the extermination of a whole religion, this was genocide, like never seen before.
Amy was helping the men triage the prisoners, she felt like she was about to vomit, the stench in the camp was overwhelming and nothing had prepared her for this, for seeing an actual concentration camp.
Speirs walked by and noticed his tough ass wife looking pale and fragile and he knew he had to get her out of there "Amy why don't you go and help unload the trucks"
Amy looked at Ron, gave him a grateful smile, and walked towards the trucks the 326th medical unit had brought with them.
Amy started to help and she noticed Sink, Winters Nixon, Katie, Lane and Doctor Kent walk towards Mia.
Mia was talking to one of the polish prisoners, when she heard Sink address her "Lieutenant MacKall"
Mia turned around "Sir" she said and saluted Sink
"This here is Doctor Kent, he is the regimental surgeon" Sink introduced the two doctors to each other.
"So tell me what do we got here," Kent asked Katie
"Well, all of them are starving, 99 percent of the men have cholera and typhus and they all have some sort of respiratory tract infection, pneumonia mostly. I need blankets, cots, antibiotics, food with life bacteria in it, clothes, every medicine you can think of, plasma, saltwater, disinfection, you name I need, and a bunch of nurses would be awesome" Katie told Kent
"Well, you can have whatever I got on these truck and I can some of your men scrounge for supplies at the local hospital" Kent said
Pretty soon, the 326th took over from second battalion and in no time tents was pitched and the nurses, medics and the two doctors was working hard.
Amy and Lane poked their head into the tent Mia and Katie was working in. They just looked at them and motioned for them to leave, one thing was for here to risk infection, but they wouldn't let their friends catch anything.
…..
Nixon and Lane was sitting in the living room in Lane's billet, she shared a small house with Mia and Katie, who was working out at the camp and Lane wasn't expecting her home anytime soon.
Lane was looking at a jittery Nixon who need a drink and Lane wouldn't let him, she had sat him down and told him, he wasn't leaving the house until he was sober.
Lane knew he could do it, he did once when she first met him and by god, she was going to sober him up again.
Katie, who had returned to town to find some papers, was sitting on the couch in the living room of her and Dick's billet. She was going thru the paper work when her husband walked in, she couldn't help but smile and winters walked over, sat down next to her, pulled her close to him, and kissed her on top of her head. He needed to be close to her after what they experienced today and after what he just heard from Division HQ
"I just heard from Division HQ, that the Russian liberated a larger camp, ten times, big with ovens…"
"The towns' people claim they didn't know about the camp, that we are exaggerating" Katie said
"Well they are going to find out tomorrow. Taylor just declared Marshall Law and every able body between the age of 14 and 80 are going to help burry the bodies"
Katie looked at Winters "Serves them right" was all she said
…..
The next morning a very tired Lane drove Nixon out to the camp, the people from town were already working on burying the dead.
Lane could tell Nixon still had a hard time dealing with what he had seen "You need to accept the fact this has happened and live with it, knowing you fought for those who lived thru this. This is why we fight"
Nixon knew he found the reason for his war and his reason for being sober thru the rest of it.