Gettysburg
Harry Buschman
Late in the afternoon he walked out to the site of Little Round Top.
He went alone.
It is a bleak Sunday afternoon in late November and Dave Scanlon has to go back to Allentown for his final training in survival fighting tomorrow morning.
He’s standing there now, at the edge of a bleak brown field in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The grass is brown now, but in summertime it’s a lush green––blue grass they call it. The sheep and the dairy cows keep it trimmed close and neat. One would think they worked for the National Park Service.
He’s thinking of three days ... 145 years ago in late June when nearly fifty thousand Americans were killed and wounded here. Dave’s great grandfather was one of the wounded. He was a Union soldier with a mustache and an ill-fitting uniform. He carried a rifle nearly as tall as he was––taller even, when the bayonet was fitted.
Every time Dave comes home for a weekend he finds the time to come out here to this field. Little Round Top Is an inconspicuous mound of earth, it probably didn’t have a name then, but it has always been customary for men in battle to put a name and a date to places where their people were killed.
When Dave was little, his grandfather told him all about the Civil War and how strange it was that men who looked alike, spoke the same language and prayed in the same churches killed each other––cursing each other as they fell. War is like that, he said. “It turns men into animals. It’s much easier to do that than turn animals into men.”
Dave is older now, he’s a civil engineering junior at Lehigh University. He’ll finish his final year when he comes home from his tour in Afghanistan with the Pennsylvania National Guard. He’s wondering about war and why it comes again and again to visit each generation; each time more deadly ... as if it must practice to be perfect.
Comments
celticman | May 14, 2011 - 13:56
practice to be perfect' I liked this Harry and that about sums it up. I've been lucky enough to escape war and its direct effects. Fingers crossed that continues. But I'm relatively old now and war is a young man's game. The interesting thing in literature is it doesn't matter whether its Gettysburgh or All Quiet on the Western Front or Gunter Grass' Peeling an Onion. There is always normality, frivolity even, then war cuts the protagonist into a new shape.
50 000 injured or dead. Florence Nightingale did a chart that showed most injuries then did, indeed, lead to death. And if you have 50K deaths, you must have 150K fighting. That's a lot of bodies.
Harry Buschman | May 14, 2011 - 14:07
Just to stand at the foot of that hill puts a hush on the crowd ... if the south had won here there would be no United States today. So much depended on so few. Glad it struck a spark, celticman.
barryj1 | May 14, 2011 - 14:24
Particularly liked this final line:
"He’s wondering about war and why it comes again and again to visit each generation; each time more deadly ... as if it must practice to be perfect."
Per our previous conversation, this is a classic example of good things coming in small packages. Also, celticman's tip of the hat to All quiet on the Western Front is quite fitting.
Harry Buschman | May 14, 2011 - 17:31
How comforting to get the good news ... the people of Hiroshima will be happy to hear it.
oldpesky | May 15, 2011 - 09:13
Poignant piece Harry. The days of huge battles where opposing armies line up in a field and share their blood are long gone. War is a more impersonal concept these days with its smart bombs and long-range strategic targets. The death count in the Second World War outstripped that of the First, which in turn outstripped that of any preceding war. We can only wonder how deadly the Third World War will be if/when it comes along.
Harry Buschman | May 15, 2011 - 09:20
We have a pretty good idea I think. The target will be cities and utter annihilation. "The Blitz" "Dresden" and "Hiroshima" led the way and the test at Bikini atoll brought us up to date. Many thanks, oldpesky, for your response.