He was a kid from Indiana. A farm kid. One of the biggest days of his life had been when his Dad finally bought a tractor. The two old mules seemed to like the noisy thing, too. He worked side by side with his father to prepare the land, plant, cultivate and finally harvest. He had to go to school, of course, but he didn’t like it. His mind was way beyond the boundaries of his small school. He loved to look at the stars and imagine going there. On the rare occasion that a plane would fly over, he would stop what he was doing and stare until it disappeared from sight. One year at the county fair they were selling plane rides. Oh, how he wanted to go up for the fifteen minutes! But he didn’t have the money. All he could do was stand and watch as the biplane taxied out, rolled out across a pasture and slowly climbed into the sky. Oh, to be so free! But he was earthbound.

And farm bound, as well. They had sports at his school, particularly basketball, but he had little interest. If he’d had the extra time, he might have played, but winter was still busy on the farm. One hundred and sixty acres. Originally a homestead. Just he and his father to work it. Equipment needed to be fixed, wood needed to be split and stacked and carried and, of course, the livestock needed to be cared for. Just some milk cows, a dozen or so hogs, some chickens and two old mules that seemed to be enjoying their retirement. But by the time you have cleaned out stalls and hauled in feed and everything else needed to keep the animals happy, well, basketball wasn’t very important.

He grew tall and very strong. He read everything he could about the growing war in Europe. He imagined himself running off to England when he hit eighteen years old. He would be a daring Lancaster bomber pilot pulling off daring raids. His mother prayed that America wouldn’t get in the war and his father, a veteran of the Great War, always looked worried. But the boy had visions. The big question, though, was how to get to England? That would be the struggle.

In school one day the teacher was talking about Canada. It seemed Canada was still, technically, a part of England. When you went to Canada, you were actually on British soil. Wow! Canada wasn’t far! It would be way easier to get to Canada than England, and then he could join the Canadian Air Force (did they have one?) and get to the war that way.

He was a farm kid, though. The war would probably be over by the time he could get there. Life wasn’t fair.

And then, in early December of his sixteenth year, came the most horrible news. America had been attacked in a place he had barely ever heard of by a little nation that had no business going to war with the USA. All of his thoughts had centered on the war in Europe and now here were the Japanese attacking us in the Pacific. Who did they think they were? Why, we would beat those little guys every which way, you just wait. So, the farm kid listened to every radio report and read every newspaper article. FDR declared war. Good! Now we would box their ears a good one! Only it didn’t happen that way. Not by a long shot. America was in the war and troops were headed over two vast oceans, east and west, but they weren’t turning the tide of war. Spring of 1942 came and Jimmy Doolittle led his attack on Tokyo. American troops landed in Africa. It was heating up! But victories just weren’t coming.

He was going to join up, but his father said no. He wasn’t old enough to join by himself and the old man needed him at home. He would not be eighteen until he Fall of 1943. There had better be some fighting still to do.

The Indiana farm boy fumed and fussed the rest of the year. Word of victories began to filter in. The tide wasn’t turning very fast, but the Allies were starting to hold their own a little better. Another cold winter and suddenly it was 1943. The Allies were starting to gain some ground. The year moved along (aided by a cute little blond haired girl from a farm across the way) and it was finally September. Eighteen years old! Dad, I’m off! You’ll have to do without me for a spell! His father shook his hand with a sad look, his mother and two sisters cried and wailed and embarrassed him and the cute blond girl wept and promised to wait for him, which made him smile with pride. Skipping his senior year, but that didn’t matter. He signed up with the Army so he could fly bombers.

But the Army had a different idea. During Basic he signed up for flight school, but they had plenty of flyboys. The Army needed ground pounders. He was shocked at first. He had never even considered being a foot soldier. But if it got him into action, so be it.

Basic ended and his class didn’t even get to go home for a bit. It was all rush-rush. Next thing he knew he was marching up a gang plank with his full kit on his back boarding a huge ship. They were heading out to England. Maybe there he could get into planes!

Getting there, however, was a problem. First, they were told that if they were torpedoed, wait for the ‘abandon ship’ klaxon, leave your kit and get topside. Then they told them that if you were going to be sea sick, get topside. He snorted at that last. He had been out on the water lots. He would be fine. But he found that a rowboat on a calm Indiana pond was somewhat different from a troopship in the Atlantic. Day and night, he was on deck. Eat a little something and he was leaning over the rail. Other GIs laughed at him good naturedly. One evening he was leaning against the rail trying to catch his breath when a major smoking a cigar ambled by. He came to something resembling attention and weakly saluted the major. The major replied with a return salute and asked him what he was doing on deck. The young soldier thought quickly and told the major he was looking for periscopes. The major smiled and told him to keep up the good work.

By the time the ship pulled into port at Aberdeen, Scotland, the Indiana farm kid didn’t care about planes or glory or even the cute little blond haired girl back home. He wanted firm, unmoving ground under his feet.

He expected to ship out to Italy right away. That was where the real fighting was going on. Instead, he wound up at a training camp somewhere. There was ocean nearby, but for a while they went no where near it. They were just run through drill after drill. This was stupid, he thought. If you are not going to put me on a plane then let me go somewhere and fight! Training, marching, running. Let me soldier! Sometimes, passes were issued to allow the men to go and have a good time in town. He never went. He would take the time to write to his sweetheart back home. They were not to mention where they were, but he wouldn’t have, anyway. She would not have believed a town actually carried that name. Once in a while he would get a letter back. The last one he got before the world came unglued for him simply said, “COME HOME TO ME, SOLDIER BOY!”

Then came the day they climbed aboard landing craft and started practicing beach landings. After that, all communication to home or anywhere else was cut off. Suddenly superiors were all business. The waters around England are rough any time of year, but Spring seemed particularly wicked. They didn’t spend a lot of time on the landing craft, but it was all misery to him. He had wanted to fly bombers. Now, drowning was looking pretty good.  

And then came the BIG day. They clamored aboard boats and headed out to sea. Thousands and thousands of men, coming from everywhere. Brits, of course, and Canadians and French and Poles and who knew who else. And Americans! More Americans than he would have thought lived in the whole state of Indiana. Whatever was going to happen was going to be really big.

It didn’t matter how big it was, though. Once on the transport ship he started the familiar heaving. When they called for the men to board the landing craft, he couldn’t do it. He was too weak. An officer came to him and asked him if he wanted off the boat. Yes, he gasped. Well, soldier, over there is land and the way to get there is on that landing craft. Suddenly that had a real good ring to it. Over the side and into the boat.

The wave action was worse on the small boat. Torment! A French soldier was in the bow of the boat, cheering and pointing. “Pays natal, PAYS NATAL!” The Indiana kid shook his head. He wants paid? And then the Frenchman went quiet. He toppled over into the boat, a ghastly tear in his chest. He blinked his eyes a couple of times and then his eyes just stayed open, empty and staring. The sea sickness was gone as the Hoosier stared at the dead French soldier.

The gate fell and the men rushed off. Into very deep water. Being tall, the young soldier fared better than some. He slogged forward, held to the ocean floor by his kit. Waves washed over his head and little splashes leaped around him. Bullets, his mind informed him. Well, OK. We kind of expected that, but still the actuality was surprising. The closer he got to land the shallower the water got. And then he was on the beach. Running around the obstacles that had been placed by German engineers.

What followed was worse than any movie he had seen in town. First, it was all noise and yelling and screams. Men, his comrades, ripped apart by enemy fire. Then there climbing and shooting and fighting. If an officer or a sergeant gave you an order, you followed that order. You didn’t have to know that officer or sergeant. You just trusted them completely because of a piece of brass on their collar or three or more stripes on their sleeve. The young man left the thinking to others. Days went by. Somewhere he got a second stripe on his sleeve. Corporal? How? More marching, more fighting. Gradually his mind began to work again. People were depending on him. That seemed to galvanize him. They left the beaches of Normandy behind, along with the horror that was D-Day, and they moved farther inland.

By the time winter was coming on, the Indiana kid was a man, a two striper who had a squad to look after. When replacements came into the squad, they were told by the others to just do what the corporal tells you and you will be alright. A grizzled vet who had only been in the Army a year.

Early morning, December 16, 1944, in a forest called the Ardennes, the young corporal was dreaming a sweet dream of the blond girl he had left behind. Mail hadn’t caught up with them yet, so the last message he had was “COME HOME TO ME, SOLDIER BOY!” In his dream he was home. A wonderful meal had been prepared and he and the blond were about to eat. “Hey, corporal! Wake up! The sarge says there are reports of activity up ahead. C’mon, Corporal! WAKE UP!” And just then, the world exploded. An 88mm HE tank round slammed into a nearby tree. The sweet dream was gone. He was shouting out orders. “FORM A LINE!” But instead they had to withdraw. The German attack, known to history as the Battle of the Bulge, had caught the Allies completely flat footed. The day was spent in retreat. Several days, actually. Over a week. In the dark of the morning on Christmas Eve, the allied troops that the corporal was attached to, were hunkered down in a village with the unlikely name of Foy-Nôtre-Dame. The misplaced Hoosier was exhausted. The Germans wanted that village. The orders were to hold it. The young private next to him was softly crying. He had come into the line just before the initial attack and had seen no combat before. The corporal wondered if he had cried some time after D-Day. He couldn’t remember.

When the Germans attacked it wasn’t really a surprise. And it wasn’t as intense as they had thought it would be. But they had overwhelming numbers. The boy next to him screamed and rolled over, dead already. Then it felt to our young Hoosier that someone had grabbed his leg while he lay there and yanked. Yelping, he looked down. His leg was a shambles. Didn’t even look like a leg. As he stared at his leg, the pain began. Amazing, he thought. At first it didn’t hurt. But now the pain was getting white hot. He dropped his head into the rubble of the village and closed his eyes. He would bleed to death soon. The pain! Death needs to come soon!

He heard voices behind him. “They got the corporal!” He couldn’t die! Not yet! His men needed him. He pulled his head up. He pulled his rifle over. The young dead soldier close by didn’t need his rifle. The corporal took his rifle, too. He began to fire at flashes in the dark. “Somebody go get the corporal!” He fired his rifle dry of ammunition. He started firing his dead comrade’s rifle. Two men dropped down next to him. “C’mon, corporal. We gotta go!” “You go! I ain’t backing up anymore!” Then they heard the rumble of tank treads. “Panzers!” the corporal gritted out. “Go NOW!”

The woman was a little stooped with age, and she hadn’t been very tall to begin with. Her hair, still with a few sprigs of blond, ruffled in the breeze. She stood on the porch of her home and looked out over their Indiana farm. It had been in her husband’s family for generations. She remembered the first time she had bounded up those steps to this house, which had been new back then. The farm had been a lot smaller, but her husband had managed it well. He had gone to Purdue on that new G.I. Bill and had become quite the farmer. He was handicapped, but he didn’t live handicapped. Oh, that was so long ago! But the Lord had given them good health and five strong children, fifteen wonderful grandchildren and….how many greats? Hard to remember now a days. Then she heard a noise. Looking around the corner of the porch she saw the youngest of the greats. A little guy who was SO BORED out here on the farm. He was playing with some little plastic, well, dolls.

“Great grandson,” she said with mock severity. “What are you doing?” “Playing with my Action Heroes.” She looked at him with a small smile. “Really? Why don’t you go and spend some time with a real hero?” “Yeah, that’s funny! There are no heroes around here.” “Well, great grandson (my, I wish I could remember his name!), you sit on this swing and I will be right back and show you a hero!”

She bustled away, a smile on her lips. She returned in a few short minutes with a simple wooden box. The little boy looked bored.

Grandma sat down on the swing and slowly opened the box. Inside were various medals and badges and ribbons, carefully mounted, and right in the center of the mountings was a red, white and blue ribbon. Attached at the bottom of that ribbon was a five pointed silver star. In the corner of the box were the two stripes of a corporal. The boy’s eyes grew large.

“Who do these belong to?” Grandma pointed out across the yard to where an old man was leaning on a cane and looking out over a field of soybeans. An old dog had laid down and was waiting for the old man to move.

“There is a man who fought in the greatest war of all time. He fought hard. He had a terrible wound but kept firing to hold off the enemy while ordering his men to escape. The enemy was almost ready to break through. The war might have been lost….” Her voice trailed off. “G’ma, what happened!”

She caught herself. “American tanks showed up just in time. By the time the medics got there he was unconscious from loss of blood. His leg was nearly shot away, but he was going to do whatever he could to save his men. He won the Silver Star for heroism. Grandpa is a real hero. My hero.”

The little fellow watched his aged grandfather for a bit. “Yeah, he’s my hero, too!” With that, he jumped off the porch and sprinted out to the old man.

The old woman watched from the swing. Softly, as if still talking to someone, she said, “Yes, my soldier boy came home.”

        Thank you, veterans. Thank you, families, for raising and giving us heroes.