Baylor Military School, Evansville, Wisconsin
January 15, 1944
Day is done:
“Nine o’clock! Lights out!”
Stamp books closed, all trading stopped.
Letters to mom and dad held off, to be written the next day.
Checkerboards folded. Red and black checkers and black and white chessmen put into their boxes and the boxes put onto the game shelf.
Hands and face scrubbed. Teeth brushed.
Squeaking of bedsprings. Rustle of bedding.
A whisper: “Shhh!” A giggle: “Quiet!” A burst of laughter: “Settle down!”
“Quiet in there! Squad leaders making rounds.”
“Floor two, west section all accounted for!”
“Thank you, Frankie. Good night.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Stoldig. Good night.”
Two hundred and fifty-two boys lay in warm, clean beds. Eyes closed or looking at the dimly iridescent ceiling, or through the window at the slivered, silver moon.
Waiting… Waiting.
It started.
The bugle.
Muted, as though coming from a great distance…
Soft. Sad. Crying.
Taps: Day is done.
Gone the sun.
From the lake.
From the hills, from the sky.
Day is done.
For the boys lying awake, it was their time of personal reflection. Sadly thinking of a loved and missed mother, father, brother, sister… home.
Remembering for all the make-believe, even though it was remote and far away from this small, peaceful place in southern Wisconsin, there was a war being fought, and those that had remembered that their father or big brother was “there”… wherever “there” was.
Children.
American children.
John Wayne. Randolph Scott. The Lone Ranger and Captain Midnight.
Pictures in pencil or crayon: A B-17 Flying Fortress with its bomb bay open. “Bombs away!”
Bombs falling on the “bad guys”: on Germany, on Japan.
A Lockheed Lightening with its white- and blue-winged star.
“Off we go, into the wild blue yonder,
flying high into the sky!”
Children. American children.
For them the war was far away, a distant, romantic montage of movie shadows and radio sounds.
RATATATATATAT! The staccato burst of machine guns.
“Tail gunner to pilot!”
“Yeah, Joe?”
“Hey, Cap, there goes another good Nip!”
The Japanese Mitsubishi Zero, fire and smoke spewing from its engine, spiraled madly towards earth.
“Yeah, good shootin’, Joe!”
“Say hello to Tojo, Nip!”
“Squad leader to squad! Hiennies coming in at two o’clock!”
RATATATATATAT!
“I say, Captain. There goes another ‘good Hiennie’!”
The German Mercedes Messerschmitt, fire and smoke spewing from its engine, spiraled madly towards earth.
“Good show!”
“Say hello to Hitler, Hiennie!”
They lay in their warm, clean beds, sleeping, dozing, or talking softly. They talk of this and that: of parents, of brothers, of sisters, of pets, of friends… of home.
Burrowing a little deeper in their blankets, soon all are asleep.
Thin, wispy clouds scuttled across the sky.
The wind blew, rustling dead and dried leaves.
All was quiet…
