Impossible to Forget . . .

Impossible to forget …Seeing a guy fall next to you . . . the worst thing that could happen was to see one of your buddies get wounded . . . when you saw a guy on the ground and you were next to him and he was bleeding and he was dying but you couldn’t help him . . . that was one of those situations that wasn’t easy. He could be next to you. I saw some die. You’d be right there but you couldn’t do anything because the Germans were dug in. We were, too, and weren’t in any hurry to advance. There were times when guys would get shot by shells or a shell fragment. I saw a guy at Zutfen, I will always remember it. It left its mark on me. The fragment went into his neck. He had a fragment that was burning, it was iron or steel and he was dying. With each heartbeat, blood poured out. That left its mark on me. I don’t know how many days it took me to get it out of my mind. I saw him die. I couldn’t do anything. When guys were wounded next to you and you were on the front line, you couldn’t go to help any of them. There were positions where you could and others where you couldn’t. Even when the guy was screaming, bawling or crying . . . we couldn’t do anything. There were troops in the rear guard to take care of them when we were able to advance later. But seeing your buddy die beside you, that was hard . . . that wasn’t an easy thing to take. Or a guy who got a shoulder or an arm amputated or a foot . . . a guy who stepped on a mine and lost his legs . . . those were things that we saw. In 11 months, we saw quite a bit. But seeing a guy die in front of you . . . it wasn’t so hard to take if he got shot and fell down dead. But when you saw him die and you couldn’t do anything for him . . . You were the same age. I mean, dying is hard, but when you saw someone die like that, you couldn’t do anything . . . that stayed with me because before the guy died, each time that he had a spasm, the heart would pump out the blood . . . I saw it pouring out . . . That gets to you. That’s why I am telling you that when there were one or two Germans who were going to surrender at a time like that, it was not the right time to do it. The guys would come back and say, “They tried to escape.” That was the expression. What did you want to do with two Germans? Get stuck with them? Were you going to leave your buddies who were getting themselves killed for the sake of two Germans? How did you live with these stories after the war? We were prepared, once the war was over. We had psychiatrists of some kind . . . today they have all kinds. After the war was over, they told us to have fun and to get some new ideas in our heads. They said some of us would have after-effects that would stay with us. For some they wouldn’t be so bad. For others they would be worse. In my case, I was nervous. My mother said that I used to bang against the walls out of nervousness . . . Anyway, you couldn’t forget because when you came back home, everybody questioned you. How could you get back on an even keel when everyone . . . you couldn’t go anywhere at the time, to taverns. There were taverns on every street corner and having a beer was a normal thing to do. I was not a beer lover as such, but having a drink . . . or even being in factories . . . all those who came back from the other side would go and visit factories. They always asked you the same question. You would be asked, “How many did you kill? ” We hated being asked that. You could talk to some people, but if you talked too much, well . . . The best thing was to get back to work, as I did. After a month, or a month and a half, I signed my honourable discharge and I returned to work, because Canadian law said that you had to go back to the work that you’d left. It was one of the laws from the Canadian government that were good. They were required to take you back in your factory. I had five boys. I got married and I had five boys. I never said anything about the war, except on November 11th. We would have a reunion as usual, a big ceremony, with fewer and fewer to attend it now . . . In the old days, at 11 o’clock, the factories and everything closed . . . everything stopped in town, and everywhere the churches would ring the bells. You would keep still for a bit and the memories would come back. But gradually, by dint of working and getting back with your family . . . there were just our reunions, veterans talking about it. But normally, it was rare, rare that you saw a veteran who would sit down and would talk about it. However, today, we can talk about it because we’ve become calmer and have some experience of life. But that’s what your children always ask you. What good would it have done me to tell my children stories? It would have disturbed me. But you have to be able to recount what happened. There are many who can’t do it, there are many who cry, there are those who . . . I have some of my guys who come to the cenotaph every November 11th and they start crying the moment that they play the Law Call. There’s no doubt that it left its mark on us.