What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  A sergeant, Frank Carafa, was in charge of the platoon when Dole arrived. (Their lieutenant had moved up when the company commander was killed on Mt. Belvedere.) Carafa was small, quick, dark-eyed, a veteran; he’d been in the Army before the war, fought in the Pacific before he joined the mountain troops. Dole asked him how long he’d been running the platoon. Carafa looked him over: the wide boyish eyes under his helmet (guy was so green, he still wore his helmet!), the big tank jacket with pockets everywhere, the pants wrapped tight around his legs and tucked neatly into the top of his boots, the clean kit on the ground beside him ... straight off the boat.

  “Since Belvedere,” he said.

  “All right, soldier. There won’t be any changes,” Dole said. “We’ll run it like you’ve been running it, until we get the knack of it.”

  Carafa nodded, and his eyes met Dole’s for a moment.

  He was scared twenty-four hours a day. Hell, everybody was. The Germans were giving ground, hill by hill, and when the Americans fought their way onto the next peak, the Jerries knew every inch of that position. They knew where the cover was: they could zero in their artillery, the .88s—and they were good. Carafa used to say they could hit a fly in the tail, while it flew. “Mail’ll be in about five,” the men would remind each other grimly. That meant artillery rounds, day after day, dawn and dusk, sometimes all night in the dark. So they dug in—foxholes, twenty-four hours a day, two men on their stomachs in the cold stony ground, one staring off at the facing hillside, watching the Germans through a twenty-power scope (sometimes, they were so close, you could spot their snipers from a puff of rifle smoke), the other trying to get his two hours’ sleep, until it was his turn to wake and watch. Food came from cans in their kits: spaghetti and meatballs, or beef stew; you didn’t dare make a fire to heat it.

  There were daily rumors of a breakout, the big push that would carry them over the ridges and into the Po Valley. It was coming, and soon. Everybody knew it. In fact, the brass had the plans drawn up, the race for the bridges over the Po, and then for the Alps, to cut off the Germans. The generals called it Operation Craftsman; but no one on the line knew the code name. Bellied to the stones in a shell hole, they worried about the guys in the next hole, six feet away. Were they still there? ... Were there Jerries out front? ... The goddam fog was the worst. You didn’t know who was around you.

  It was scariest for the replacements, guys who never bargained for infantry. Most were “Triple-A,” antiaircraft artillerymen who’d been sitting in Rome. But the Luftwaffe was finished now, so they handed these poor bastards a rifle and a shovel, and stuck ’em in foxholes. One guy they stuck in Dole’s platoon was mental with the fear. Dev Jennings, one of the sergeants, went to the company command post to tell ’em they better have a look at the guy. “He’s just not gonna be with us.” But just as Jennings brought the exec to the guy’s foxhole, they heard a shot—M-I, an American—and they found the kid standing in a corner, where he’d braced against the sides of the hole to keep still, while he fired a bullet from his rifle through his left foot. He was still holding his M-I in position, with a blank stare on his face. They shipped him off to the aid station, wrote it up: gunshot, self-inflicted. What else could they do?

  They were supposed to start the breakout April 12, with Dole’s company on the left flank, to take a rocky, brown, flattop hill, Number 913 on the maps, to clear the way for the drive to the Po. Dole got his orders as he always did, face-to-face, a visit from the company commander. There were no ready rooms for the grunts, no meetings called on that front. Why get a half-dozen officers together, where one mortar shell could take them out?

  Dole’s platoon, about forty men, was supposed to stay on the left, moving down their slope and then across a thousand yards of shallow valley, over a short stone fence, and up the slope of Hill 913. Everybody knew the Jerries were dug in all over that hill: pillboxes with tunnels between them. The Jerries knew the ground like they’d farmed it for forty years. They knew where a squad leader in the field would eye a spot of welcome cover: that’s where they’d strew their mines and booby traps, or zero in their .81 mortars, ahead of time. It was Dole’s job to keep his guys out of those spots, to belly through that field, dodging everything the Krauts could throw, to bring his guys to the top of that hill, or as many guys as he had left: that was the awful calculus behind the brave word “breakout.” How much ground did he have to take? How many of his guys would get the mattress-cover on the way?

  They were Dole’s guys now. A month is a long time in foxholes under fire. His tank jacket didn’t look so new. Now he kept extra clips of ammo taped together, like the vets, to give him forty-five quick rounds. He knew enough to keep a few grenades on his belt, no matter what the book said about leaving that to the men. The first grenade he threw bounced off a tree in the dark and blew up just a few yards away. He could still feel where a piece of hot metal flew into his leg. When was that—last month? Ancient history. Now, in the dark before the attack, Dole went down the line to his guys, a word for each, to see they were ready, a pat on the back ...

  Funny thing about that. You go down a line of grunts before dawn of a big day, give ’em a pat, and just about every one—to a man—he’ll fart. They’ve got their rifles clean, they’ve counted their grenades, their bullets, checked all their lucky little things, and then there’s nothing to do, except get tight inside. Then you come and pat ’em on the ass. ... In the Army, they call it the pucker factor. It was high that day.

  But the goddam fog stopped the plan. The bombers were coming, to soften up the Krauts, but they couldn’t take off from their fields near Pisa. So all the guys could do was lie back and wait. Then, that day, FDR died. The news came, foxhole to foxhole. Some men took it hard. Not that it changed what they had to do. It was just another reminder: the war was almost over, everybody knew ... but the old man didn’t make it. Would they? ... They waited another day.

  On the morning of the fourteenth, the weather cleared, the bombers came. It was bombing like the guys in Italy had never seen: wave after wave of planes, hitting the hillsides with five-hundred-pounders ... then the heavy artillery zeroed in on the same hills for another hour. The noise was incredible, and the guys were grinning. “God, boy, they sure ain’t alive in there now.”

  “No fuckin’ way!”

  By the time the bombardment stopped, near 10:00 A.M., no one could see Hill 913. The air was opaque with smoke and dust, the world was dark with brown grit, as the word went down the line and the boys scrambled out of their holes and Bob Dole went ahead, into the valley, into the dust.

  But the Germans were alive, hundreds of them. April 14 was a daytime nightmare of cannon, mortar, machine-gun fire—flesh in uneven contest with the “instrumentalities of war.” A second lieutenant named Kvam tried to take cover from artillery, dived into a shallow ditch, and tripped a Kraut booby trap. It was a steel pipe, cut on a diagonal and filled with explosives, so when it blew, it would spray burning steel in a wide, deadly swath. But Kvam took the whole load. When his men got to the hole, it looked like someone had dabbed the lieutenant a hundred times on his face and body with a tiny black paint brush. He was perforated.

  Dole got his men down to the low stone wall, and started to advance in British formation. The lead squad, maybe fourteen men, followed two scouts at the point of advance. Two smaller squads were behind on the flanks. Farther behind, at the rear point of the diamond, came the weapons squad, with machine guns and light mortars. The top sergeant would move in the middle, as a belly-crawling, rolling headquarters. Dole could have stayed in the middle, too. But he knew his job, and he did it. He was out front, with the lead squad.

  They were pinned down quick. The whole company didn’t make a quarter mile that morning. Third Platoon got over the wall, but the sergeant told the men to advance across the field before they’d got engineers to check for mines. So the men of the Third made about forty yards and started stepping on mines. Some were killed right there, many wounded.
The rest were pinned down in the field, when a farmhouse on the left opened fire: a Jerry machine-gun nest, sure as shit; the men in the field were hamburger.

  Dole had to get that machine gun. The lead squad was going to have to flank that house and get that nest of Krauts. Sergeant Carafa assumed he’d be going out with the squad, but Dole said, “Sergeant, I’ll take ’em.” Carafa stayed behind to cover. He got the rest of the guys in position to fire at the farmhouse, then called for mortars, while they opened up with BARs—Browning automatics, the light machine guns.

  Dole went ahead on the steep, rocky field. With the morning’s bombardment, the mortars, and machine-gun fire, the ground was littered with bits of metal. There were still shells flying in from the slope behind the farmhouse, and German mortars dug in on the backside of the hill. Dole made fifty or sixty feet before they spotted him from the farmhouse, opened up on him and his squad. He yanked the pin from a grenade and lobbed it, but it fell short. Romberg, the first scout, was closer. He half stood to let loose a grenade, but they got him. He fell face forward and his helmet rolled off in front of him. Dole couldn’t see the second scout. Jerries might have got him, too. Dole dived for a shell hole, made it, but his runner, Sims, did not, he was down. Dole scrambled from the hole on his belly, slithered out on the pocked dirt, while shells tore the air over him, and he grabbed little Sims by a handful of shirt, dragged him back, but he was deadweight, it was too late ... and now the Jerry gunners sighted Dole, who was scrambling from his hole ... had to get out, his guys were getting chewed up there ... and Dole was on all fours, moving, tearing up his hands on the ground, and then ... he felt a sharp shock of sting in his back, behind the right shoulder, he twisted in the air and went down on his face in the dirt, he couldn’t feel his arms, they shot off my arms, he couldn’t feel ... couldn’t see, face on the dirt, can’t get up to see, can’t lift ... have to get out of here!

  The others could hear him moaning. Carafa thought he heard Dole calling to him, heard it plain between the roar of the guns ... Sergeant Caraaafa. ... Dole only knew they were dragging him, dragging him back into a gully, a shallow depression, rolling him over ... the tank jacket was shredded open near the neck and shoulder. You could see into Dole through the jacket, through the shoulder, like a gouged fruit, see down to the core, and they folded the lieutenant’s arms on his chest, they had to get out. ... The sergeants said they were going to push to the right, to the east, where the engineers were tripping mines. There was another company to the east, breaking through the German line. They’d get by the hill and the Krauts to the east. They had to get moving. Dole was just lying there, staring up at them, the look in his eyes a silent plea. He knew they had to get out ... but how could they leave him?

  They called in medics, but two got killed trying to get to Dole. There weren’t many medics going to make it that day. That’s why Sergeant Kuschik carried morphine. Stan Kuschik was a great, hairy bear of a man, son of a Jewish baker from New York. He did the best he could for Dole, more than orders allowed: he pulled up a kid named Arthur McBryar, a Tennessee boy who’d been in Dole’s platoon. Kuschik told McBryar to stay with Dole, even though orders said to leave no able-bodied man behind. Dole was gray, like they get before they die. Kuschik couldn’t leave him to die there, alone. Before he got out, Kuschik dug through his kit, gave Dole a shot of morphine. Then he dipped his finger into Dole’s shredded jacket, and with Dole’s blood traced an “M” on his forehead. That’d let the medics know he’d had a shot—another would kill him, overdose ... if a medic ever got there ... if McBryar could spot one ...

  McBryar was scared to death. The medics were never gonna find them, down there, in the ravine. There was cover, but no one’d come. Dole was still right where they left him, on his back with his arms crossed over his chest, still conscious, moaning, trying to talk ... but he couldn’t unclench his teeth. He wasn’t cryin’ or anything. But McBryar was listening to the guns, couldn’t catch what Dole was trying to say. It seemed like forever till that Kraut machine gun quit. Artillery was still comin’ in. He tried to keep Dole talking, keep him going, afraid he was gonna give out.

  Dole went home. He didn’t know where the others were, so he went home, had to get home, wasn’t cold anymore, but he could feel the air, fresh, cool on his chest, he better get home, get something on, his sweater. He was running up Maple, bright sunshine, it was so bright cold, and Spitzy was running with him, his little white dog, Spitzy, was back, running with him, going home, and there was the hoop, the basketball rim in the open lot next door, and Dole was driving for the rim, to the hoop, he could feel them trying to keep him away, trying to block him, but he could get to the hoop, he could always get in, get the ball over, get the ball up, over, could always get in, dribble once, turn and go, even if he had to bang in, bang his body, arm on his shoulder up in the air, and he was falling falling never hit the ground, falling into dark darker cold he could still feel the arm air cold on him shoving him down, down, and the bright was going, pulling away, and he was falling, couldn’t stop and hands were on him shoving him down down down they were going couldn’t see home or Spitzy, SPITZY! ...

  McBryar had a bandage pressed onto Dole’s wound, had to try to slow the bleeding. Blood was soaking his jacket and uniform, turning the dry ground dark underneath. “How bad is it?” Dole said through his teeth. McBryar pulled the bandage away. Whatever hit Dole had ripped into everything. McBryar could look into him, see right down to Dole’s back. His arm was connected by a couple or three white stringy ... Jesus, they blowed his arm off.

  McBryar pressed the bandage down again. “You gonna be fine, Lieutenant.”

  McBryar cradled Dole’s head, gave him the soldier’s mix of sulfa and water, trying to hold off infection. He rubbed water on Dole’s forehead, talking to him, trying to keep him there. ...

  Dole could feel the rain on his head, legs wouldn’t move in this mud, had to get by them all, get the pass, Bud can throw the ball long, Bud Smith can throw, had to get his arms up, Bud would see him, get behind, to the end zone, couldn’t move in the mud, couldn’t move his legs, couldn’t make them go, like running through water, mud all over him, Mom’ll have a fit, soaked all over, got to get home, she’ll be there, get the mud off, dinner, be clean before dinner at the table, everybody’s probably sitting already, at the table, Mom in the kitchen where were the others, where were they? Where were they?

  After someone finally got the Kraut machine-gun bastards, McBryar left Dole in the ravine, climbed the knoll behind, trying to flag a medic. There was no one coming for them. Jesus, we’re gonna die out here. Artillery was still coming in. Couldn’t tell anymore whose it was. McBryar got hit. Hit, or knocked down. He got a concussion, they said. He was still woozy hours later, had just enough sense left to show ’em where Dole lay, in blurry dusk, when the medics found them, and packed them both off to the field hospital.

  At the hospital, nine hours after he was hit, they figured he was going to die. Whatever hit him exploded inside, broke his collarbone and the shoulder behind it, not to mention his arm. Worst thing was, it smashed into his vertebrae, crushed a piece of his spine, it was broken, the spinal cord was knocked out. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t feel anything below his neck.

  So they cleaned him up, splinted what they could reach, sent him down to the hospital in Pistoia, near Florence. But the only thing they could do there was cut him open wide, see if they could spot anything pressed against the spinal cord. Captain Woolsey was the surgeon, thought he might find out what the problem was. But when he opened Dole up, there wasn’t much to go by: nothing was in the right place, and half of it wasn’t there. They just sewed him up. Nothing more to do. If he lived, sure as hell, he was never going to walk. Of course, they didn’t tell him that. Woolsey and the hospital chief, Colonel Prosser, told him he was going to be fine. He’d just have to give it time ...

  Dole’s eyes searched their faces. His eyes were about all he could move. They had his right arm up in tr
action, and a sling under his chin, attached to weights over the back of his bed, to keep his head from moving. He stayed like that for weeks, with no feeling in his arms or legs, like the body on the bed belonged to someone else. There were a couple of guys from his company in the hospital, Oanes and Johnson, country boys, like him—Johnson was from Kansas. Both of them could walk, and they’d come to his bedside, try to adjust his pillows, try to tell him he’d be all right. At night, after the nurses came with his hypo, a syringe full of sedative to kill the pain, to make him sleep, Oanes and Johnson would take Bob’s Army comb and comb his thick black hair to ease him, to help him go to sleep.

  After a while, the doctors put him in a cast, from his chin down to his legs. They crated him for shipment like a piece of china, all but his left arm. They were going to send him out on a hospital ship. Told him they could probably do more for him outside the war zone. But he was still in Pistoia on May 2, when the Germans surrendered in Italy. The U.S. grunts had broken through, got by the hills and crossed the Po. Then the Eighty-fifth beat the Jerries back to the Brenner Pass, sealed it off, and the Germans folded. Moreover, the breakout in Italy had killed the Führer’s last hope of reinforcing the Reich. In five days, Hitler would be dead in his Berlin bunker. The war in Europe was over ... but too late for Dole. That night, they took the blackout paper off the hospital windows. He saw daylight the next day. But that was the only difference.

  They were celebrating the news in Russell, how the shooting was over where Bobby Joe was, when the telegram came in to Western Union. It was funny, how the news came. The Western Union man, James Weilman, was Doran’s neighbor. He used to bring the War Department wires for Doran to deliver. Doran was good at that kind of thing, a comfort, in that kind of time. Even the church used to call Doran, to go sit with someone. So this was the only wire of the war that Weilman had to deliver. He brought it over, and had to tell Doran, this one was for him.