Better to Wound than to Kill
Heroes Remember
When we was training, it wasn't to kill, it was to wound.
Interviewer: That's an interesting concept.
Well, the idea was that a wounded person was hard to look after.
It cost them money to look after them, you know.
It's a lot of time and every thing to look after a wounded fella.
If a fella was killed, you just buried him. That was it.
So it was better to wound them than to kill.
Interviewer: And you learned that as part of your training?
Yep. And there was some of us, you know, another thing . . .
were pretty good shots anyway, you know, cause when I was a kid
I was always in the woods with .22s something hunting like that.
There were some that were pretty darn good shots.
Interviewer: Quite an experience.
Yeah, you get in some funny places at times. One time there,
we was in this house we called the ghost house. It was . . .
there was a village ahead of us and there was some houses come
out, like in most of those little towns you see the houses come
out the side a little ways, you know, up one side there . . .
well on both sides there was a little street like going in and
there was one house there. It was the only house that had a roof
on it. And we used to go out there before daylight. And there was
three of us then that would go out. There was two snipers and a
fellow in the intelligence section. They had a telephone wire
right out there. We'd go out before daylight and stay there till
dark and then send a section out to stay in that house over night
So we didn't go out everyday. Every second or third day
we'd go out and they'd stay over night.
So they wouldn't go out in the morning and the Germans would be
in the house. They would make sure you didn't run into Germans.
But, we were that close to them. Upstairs, it wasn't a very big
there was a bedroom in the back and it had a door open a little
ways and I could stand on my toes and look right down on their
trenches. Oh sweetie, I'd say we was a good quarter of a mile
ahead of our companies to get out there.
Interviewer: So what happens then?
Well, you just had to be very careful that you know, you didn't
do too much shooting because if you did, you'd give yourself
away, give your position away. It's a wonder. I don't know yet,
why they never come into that house.
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