The Right Fight

by Chris Lynch

  And I’m bringing a new tattoo.

  I got it during one of the slow periods at Fort Jackson. A bunch of the guys were going together to get them done, and I just got in step without a lot of thinking about it. A soldier’s mentality, I guess you might say. Most of the guys got pretty girls inked on their arms, or somebody’s name, or American flags or military insignia. I didn’t want to be thinking that way with something that was going to be on my body forever, representing a statement about me, forever. There would be other times, other tattoos, and then maybe MOM or Betty Grable or Old Ironsides — the Armored Division’s nickname — might be right. But this time, it had to be special, a symbol of what I found important and worthy of space on my body indefinitely.

  Jim Thorpe. As soon as I started giving this tattoo some thought, the image of Jim Thorpe burst its way into my mental field of vision and wouldn’t budge.

  It would be hard to overstate my admiration and respect for Jim Thorpe. Olympic champion, professional baseball player, professional football player, a soft-spoken, dignified man who also happens to be a marauding, speedy, powerful force of nature. And, he is a proud American Indian man. We both have some Indian blood and some European, and that is one reason I’ve found myself so drawn to him and his story since I first heard of him. A great man. He has never let me down.

  I was almost convinced that that was my tattoo by the time we got to the parlor. There are several famous images of Jim, so surely there wouldn’t be a problem finding one. Maybe in his Cleveland Indians cap. Jim Thorpe and baseball might represent me just dandy.

  I sat in a grubby little waiting room with three other guys while three more were ushered right in. They should have offered a military discount, because we seemed to be completely supporting the place. There were samples all over the walls, the usual stuff, ships and anchors and mermaids and snakes and dragons, but as I stared around and around at them I noticed one of Mount Rushmore, too. Wasn’t expecting that. Then, a series of Wild West–themed designs.

  To their credit, the proprietors had it all covered, the cowboy stuff, Buffalo Bill and all that, the great train robbery stuff, the Civil War. They had one design with generals Lee and Grant somehow both up close in the same frame, and smiling. I don’t know who the person is who might have bought that one but I believe I would like to meet him. Once.

  They gave the American Indian a sizable presence there, even if a lot of it was that unfortunate whoop-whoop savage stuff that probably doesn’t represent anybody who ever lived. They had blondie General George Custer, too. Every American kid knows the bloody mess that was Custer’s Last Stand, but I’d bet fewer folks appreciate that before that fiasco he was a fine cavalry officer who was on the right side of things at Gettysburg and Appomattox. Certainly fewer still would know that there is convincing evidence — I’m convinced by it, anyway — that I am distantly related, on my mother’s side, to both Custer and his noble nemesis, Lakota Sioux Chief Sitting Bull. And there he was, the next image over from Custer, staring him down like he’d like to get another crack at him right now.

  My family has always done their part in this country’s military, going back to every single scrap even before the Revolution. I come from warriors, and I’m proud of that.

  The only part of that history that hurts my heart is the Indian Wars.

  “Time waits for no man, and neither do I!” bellowed the tattoo artist as he thumped back into the waiting room with yet another sore-armed soldier trailing behind him. It was the third time I’d heard this same announcement, so I figured time had come for me.

  “So why’d you choose this one?” my pal Pacifico shouts over the raw wet wind and the great ship’s slowing engines. He and I met while killing time — and nothing else — in Fort Knox. We worked out that it appeared we would be assigned to the same unit. He seems to have interpreted that to mean the two of us are a unit, since he’s everywhere, every time I turn around. I don’t mind, actually. The Queen Mary — I’ll never get used to that — is approaching Belfast Harbour and the next little jump in our long hopscotch to war. Pacifico saw the lower edges of my forearm tattoo as I leaned heavily over the rail — as if I could get us there that much faster by shoving us there. I pull up the sleeve and he traces the great chief’s contours with his finger.

  “Because Jim Thorpe is still alive, and I think it’s a little strange to have a live guy on your arm. I’m pretty sure Jim doesn’t have a tattoo of me — yet — but I could be wrong.”

  “Yu-huh,” he says. “That explains why Jim isn’t here. Now how come Sitting Bull is?”

  We got along pretty smooth from the minute we met, me and Pacifico. I think we could just recognize something in each other that makes it easy, makes us be able to say anything to each other at any time. If we feel like saying anything at all. Which lots of times we don’t, and that’s also hunky-dory, especially if we’ll be spending lots of time cooped up in the same tank, with three other guys.

  He’s been well aware of the tattoo all along but never asked. Suddenly, it’s very interesting to the guy, as Northern Ireland, and mainland Europe there hiding behind it, is sailing right for us.

  There it is. It’s coming into view now.

  “Long time between question and answer, Bucyk. Is it an unbearable, shame-based answer, is that it? Will it make you cry?”

  He knows that Sitting Bull, the real one, would cry before I would. Probably the tattoo one, too.

  “Family,” I say, evenly but in a voice that I hope signals this is a no-joke area.

  “Honest Injun?” he says, dumb enough to violate my warning voice but wise enough to be backing away as he does it.

  “I played pro ball, Pacifico. I’m pretty sure I could reach that ice-cold water if I threw you from here.”

  He has a big meaty grin that somehow doubles the size of his face. He’s also undoing his jacket and his shirt as he comes closer again.

  “Seriously, though,” he says, “you Indian, Bucyk? What kinda Indian tribe does Bucyk come from?”

  “My father’s tribe,” I say sarcastically. “They come from Ukraine. Indian’s from my mother’s people.”

  “Ukraine,” he says earnestly. “Is that a country or something?”

  It’s not the first time I have wondered how much of the world’s geography most of us only know through wars. But it is the first time I feel there’s something I can do about it.

  “I have a really, really long answer to that. Or, a short one.”

  He is politely diplomatic. “Maybe the short one for now. Then the long one for when we have more time.”

  “It is a country. Though for centuries a lot of invaders have failed to respect that. Including Uncle Joe Stalin now.”

  “Hey,” he says, actually looking around like a teacher might hear and we’ll get in trouble. “That’s an ally you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I know,” I say. “I’ve been following the news of all those brave Russians fighting off the Nazis in Stalingrad.”

  “Right. Heroes.”

  “Yeah, except that about a third of the heroes forgot to tell the Russians they are Ukrainians.”

  There is a little bit of thoughtful silence now.

  “This is the short version, Bucyk, yeah?”

  I have to laugh. “Ah, yeah, I guess. Sorry.”

  “Uh-huh … So, your mom’s an Indian. Well, I think that’s great, pal,” he says as he struggles with a stuck zipper and then frozen fingers that don’t manage buttons too nimbly. “And I think that you’re great for honoring family.”

  He lets out a little yip of triumph when he manages to defeat the fiercely resistant buttons, and I wonder briefly what he’ll make of real battle. Then he opens the curtains, exposing his chest to me and the bracing wet cold, but he is undeterred as he seems to be generating his own heat, from his core.

  Nonna it says, arched, gold with orange and red like a sunrise over his left pectoral. The script is calligraphy or something, real art, and probably
cost him twice the bucks, twice the pain, and twice the time in the chair that I had to spend.

  I smile and nod and stare just the way I am surely supposed to, and finally I tell him it is beautiful because that’s just what it is.

  “Nonna,” he says, still chipper and proud but finally conceding to cold reality as he covers back up. “It’s Italian for grandmother. It’s for my nonna.”

  You cannot help smiling goofy with a guy who is smiling at you so powerfully goofy right there. It has the power of a small sun or something and you just cannot fight it.

  The Queen Mary blasts its world-shaking horns as we pull into Belfast Harbour where it looks like the entire population of the island is there shouting for us, and almost as many of our guys are crowding the decks to holler right back at them.

  “You’re a good boy, Pacifico,” I say as I wave both hands overhead at the folks who are all waving at us just like that.

  “She’s a good nonna,” he replies, waving the same waves at the same folks.

  The cheering from these people, from these foreign people, is overwhelming. I never lacked for motivation or desire to get in on the right fight, but this is stirring me up in a whole new frenzy for it. They are cheering so mad and so certain even though they don’t even know us, even though we haven’t done a blessed thing yet, for them or for anybody else.

  But we’re gonna. I guarantee right now, we’re gonna.

  Endurance. That’s what we learn during our extended time training in Northern Ireland. We learn to endure endless waiting, which obviously features large in the Army experience. But we also learn to endure abysmal weather conditions, lashing sideways rain for days and days on end while we practice maneuvers out in mucky bogs that make tank movement a serious challenge. Like the rain here, I find myself driving sideways as much as straightways, but I have to admit this part of training has done as much for my skills as anything else so far. The Sherman M-4 is bigger and heavier than the M-3 I first learned on, and the driver sits a lot lower, too, so I am happy enough to get in every extra hour, in all kinds of slop, in order to become fully a part of the machine.

  The other great benefit to our time here is getting to know the other parts of the machine.

  The tank crew, that is. It’s a unit that, by design, has to operate as closely and interdependently as any in the military.

  Our tank commander, a captain, is named Cowens. He is the most vital part of this machine, and you can see that within seconds and without him having to tell you. Though he is perfectly happy to tell you, if you require telling. And he’s happy to tell you that you require telling. He’s older than the rest of us by a few years, probably pushing thirty, and is so invested in every aspect of what he calls Tanking, Tankery, The Art of Tankism, Tank-you-very-much — really pretty much anything you can bend the word tank into — that I wonder if he’d even be here if they used tanks in farming or whaling or lumberjacking. I think he’d be happiest if he could just have his own tank, roaming the globe with it as the world’s deadliest private citizen. I’ve never been afraid of any man — not bragging, just revealing — but if I were going to be, I suppose I’d start with him.

  I’m the driver, of course, with Pacifico, my right-hand man, as assistant driver and machine gunner. Up in the turret with Commander Cowens are the main gunner, Logan, who mans the big 75-mm cannon, and the loader, Wyatt, who keeps that weapon and all the rest fed and ready for action.

  We get to know one another steadily throughout the Northern Ireland training, but it all comes together one night when we are required — forced — to stay out on maneuvers, and the rain and sleet and wind and freezing temperatures keep us bunked down in the Sherman overnight, supposedly to sleep.

  Sleeping upright is bad enough, but the tank is cold. There is one surface that’s like a shelf over the engine compartment that retains some warmth for a while even after the engine is shut down. We arrange a rotation where we switch and take turns up there periodically, but it becomes obvious that staying bundled up in your seat beats moving around and climbing up there for the increase of maybe one degree of heat you get out of it.

  “First Armored Division,” Commander Cowens growls into the dark as the rain’s million billion Irish dancers go on with the show.

  It sounds like some kind of challenge, and for several long seconds nobody wants to pick it up. I figure ignoring him would probably be a worse option so I decide to take one for the team and respond.

  “Quite an honor, I’d say,” I say.

  “Quite a joke, actually,” he answers. His tone comes down some and it sounds more like he’s getting something off his chest, or educating some rookies, than picking a scrap. “The Second Armored Division is the real McCoy,” he says.

  “How can you tell?” Wyatt asks. Soft-spoken guy, Wyatt, but when you listen you realize that’s deceptive. Because he’s always talking straight, speaking real thoughts and asking direct questions.

  “A lot of reasons. You could see the whole game shifting during the maneuvers, Louisiana and especially Carolina. You could see the big boys waking up, seeing what’s been happening in Europe, the difference Tankism is making. Tanks were nothing special, a novelty, up until now. Now they know.”

  “That doesn’t mean we’re not the top, though,” Logan says. He always sounds like he’s in a rush. Like there’s something else more important he has to do right after he’s finished saying something, even if he just sits there quiet afterward. Then he does it again. Could get irritating, I imagine, but I like him okay now.

  “Patton,” Cowens snaps. “That’s all you need to know. General Patton is commanding the Second Armored Division, so that’s all you need to know right there. That’s the Tanking genius, that man practically invented the whole business. No, if divisions were bananas, the First would be second, and the Second would be top.”

  All I can do in this situation is hope that nobody makes any other “bananas” connections regarding our commander. At least not out loud.

  “Commander?” Pacifico says.

  “Yes?”

  There is a certain something here that I have never quite experienced before. We are cooped up in this compact metal machine. It’s cold and dark and it’s the edge of an island off the edge of a new continent, off the edge of war. And with our disembodied voices floating in this complete foreign unknown, I feel unusual. A rush of something comes over me, really strange, not entirely welcome, not entirely bad.

  Need. Just like that, I’m welded, like it or not, to these guys, this team, like I have never been to any team before. And there have been a lot of teams.

  “Where are we going?” Pacifico asks. “I mean, to fight.”

  “Fight?” Logan says, rushed, but jokey. “Who said anything about fighting?”

  “I came here to fight,” I say, not jokey at all.

  “Well, I didn’t come here to not fight,” Pacifico says.

  “I did,” says Wyatt. “I came here to not fight. But I suppose if you guys get into trouble I’ll back you up.”

  “France,” Cowens says.

  “Yeah?” I say.

  “Yeah. Well, I don’t know anything for sure, of course. I mean, why would they tell me? If they were gonna tell me stuff like that I’d probably be in the Second, right? But it just makes sense. Look at the map, look at the way the war’s going. The Americans are over here now, and we’re not here to Mickey Mouse around. I think we are part of a much larger force being assembled for the invasion of France. It’s gotta be the invasion of France. We will liberate the French and then storm straight across and into Germany for the big finish.”

  “Yes!” I say, too loud for the confines, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  “Yeah! Yes! Yes! Alllll right! Yeah!”

  I think the team’s ready for France.

  Thank you, Northern Ireland. Thank you for your faith and your moors and peat bog land and your hospitality. Thank you for your stunning, pounding, ancient, and fierce take-
no-prisoners rocky coast. Thank you for your challenging hills and rotten, soggy weather and for my first-ever steps off of American soil.

  Thank you, Queen Mary and Brooklyn, Fort Knox, Fort Jackson, Fort Dix. Thank you, Carolina and Louisiana. Thank you all for getting this fighting force to this point of hardness, readiness, knowledge, stamina, meanness, confidence, anger, and above all, frustration.

  Now go away. Dismissed. That’ll be it, one and all. We’ll take it from here.

  Britain’s been fighting this thing since 1939 and has gotten more bloody noses out of it than Joe Louis’s sparring partners. Allies have already come and gone in the course of it as Germany has snacked on countries big and small all along its wicked path. Even France gave up by 1940. Big ol’ France. You look at the map today and you … well, you don’t want to look at the map.

  Then, since the Empire of Japan kindly invited us to the party over ten months ago, our boys have been out in the Pacific Theater, taking on the Japanese — who seem to be having exactly the effect on that part of the world that the Germans are having on this one. Our guys are chasing the Japanese fleet all over that ocean, and engaging their soldiers on hundreds of tiny little islands that nobody ever heard of before but that are right now critical to peace in this world. It’s been fierce over there for some time, and the numbers don’t sound good. In April we surrendered a place called Bataan that I never even knew we had to begin with. Never knew it existed. I know it now, though, like everybody else. Seventy-six thousand allied soldiers were taken prisoner, twelve thousand of them our boys. Japanese then forced them all on a sixty-mile march to a new camp, no water, no food in the murderous sun. Five thousand fewer American servicemen, that’s what we had at the end of that sixty-mile death march in Bataan. Bataan. Has this thing spread so much that they’re having to make up new places to contain it all? Bataan is a huge, strategically important, famous place right now. When the war is done with it, will Bataan still be that?