Any similarity between the characters portrayed in this story and persons living or dead is strictly because you have a guilty conscience.

Now don’t tell me you don’t know what a “dogface” is. No one can be that ignorant, or are you? Well maybe you are, or perhaps you’re too young and much too happy to give a damn. Well Junior I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You jump on my knee, and I’ll unwind the whole droll story for you. How back in forty-five in a place where there were more dead than alive; a GI Joe whose name happened to be Joe was walking along minding his own business, when … ! That’s a smart boy; how did you ever guess?
Joe liked to do everything the hard way, and that day was no exception. He had “quints”; not the ordinary kind females give out with, but the extra special steel type produced by the eighty-eight millimeter Snell as used by the German Army during the Second World War. He didn’t have too much chance to realize his good fortune; all he knew was that somebody or something had whistled at him with a loud wow, and he couldn’t walk. He should though have had some sort of a premonition, for he was carrying his dog tags in his pocket.
To retire from life at the age of nineteen is considered quite an accomplishment even in this free land of ours, and Joe had done it in less than a split second. He was yet to learn that he had just had his body muscles robbed of their manly form, and that his pubic hairs were to find their growth stunted.
To tell the truth my name is Joe, and I’m the dogface who suddenly found himself ducking into a hole and yelling for help. I called to a supposed comrade in arms to come to my aid, but this pseudo buddy replied, “I’m not coming out of my hole. I’m afraid.” Realizing that valor was not an asset of that louse I called to Bill our squad leader. Bill was built of material of a stronger caliber. When he arrived I asked him to raise my legs, so that I wouldn’t go into shock. Bill was taken back by this request and bewilderedly replied, “Your legs are out of the hole.” He called for the medics, and as we waited their coming he began slapping me on the back while reciting these encouraging words. “You lucky bastard; maybe you’re hurt badly enough to go home.” The blood trickling down the right side of my face convinced me he was right.
When the medics arrived they asked me if I could walk, and I naively replied, “Yes; if you will give me a hand.” I then unwittingly committed the stupid error of trying to rise up with their aid. My legs failed to respond, and my body collapsed. Realizing that I was injured more seriously than appeared they finally called for a litter. Though I dropped my carbine and helmet getting onto the litter I didn’t care, as I knew that I was attacking towards the rear and safety.
The ride on that litter was short and disappointing, for as we approached the site where the “First Battalion” forward aid station should have been we found that our so-called Battalion surgeon has failed to rendezvous leaving us with no aid station at all. A quick detour, and off to the second Battalion station we went. The situation there was impossible. We found litter cases in, around, and on top of it. It may have been a stormy petrel, but the first‚ because of our doctor’s cowardice, had overloaded the second.
When the shell landed it had hit two others beside myself; killing one instantly. The other was carried out along with me. The aides sensing the seriousness of our wounds gave us top priority, and took us to a prone shelter where two “dogfaces” were resting in preparation for a night patrol. The “Tigers” as they were called (a name taken from the German Tiger Tank) were told to leave, and their shelter was given to us. As soon as we were at what I thought to be comfortably inside my companion “Shorty” started to moan. I asked him not to; to which he replied, “It feels better when I yell.” Obligingly I responded, “O.K. yell.”
Night crept quickly upon us, and the unnatural stillness frightened us into believing that we had been abandoned. It was eerie enough to force “Shorty” into stopping his moaning. If either an enemy or friendly shell had whined overhead it would have helped our morale greatly, for the awful quiet was of no use to our blood pressures.
We had no way of reckoning the time (though we were trying our best to do so) when suddenly we heard the familiar putter of a good old American jeep. We wanted to give out with a wild yell, but decided to wait it out for the Germans were quite adept at commandeering American equipment. Someone whom I’m sure was a graduate of one of America’s cosmopolitan cities stuck his uneven mud packed face into our hole, and yelled, “Hey youse guys, ya all right?” Confident that no German no matter how well schooled could duplicate that brogue, and that our boys hadn’t forgotten where they had laid us we answered. In a matter of minutes we found ourselves racked on the special frames that the jeeps were equipped with for the carrying of litters, and on our way from the carnages, glories, and stupidities of war.
In the hundred days that I had been dodging bullets on the front lines it had never occurred to me to steal a look up at the stars. It was as a refreshing dream, for it was so peaceful up there; Peaceful, that is, until the bombardments resumed with their shell whines breaking the beautiful silence. The whines also proved to be a source of amusement to me, for the medics grew more and more nervous as those eerie sounds continued. My short time as a hero of democracy had taught me, if nothing else, which way the shells were flying. Incoming shells whistled as if at a girl, but high-flying friendly shells fluffed and fluttered through the air sheepishly. Our medics were thoroughly green and confused as to why we who were lying helplessly on our racked litters were concerned only parts of the time! They couldn’t help but to be jumpy and nervous throughout the entire trip.
Don’t ask me how long, or how far the jeep carried us, for I don’t know, or for that matter care. All I do know is that we found ourselves at a hamlet where we were unloaded. The aides then carried us into the darkened building, which had been requisitioned by Uncle Sam’s Army to serve as “rear aid station”. There was the smiling face of that bastard of a doctor who was supposed to have been on the line with the “forward aid station”. The thought of giving him a swift kick in the teeth as it was taught in the Infantry School entered my mind, but I was forced to settle for a cool drink of sugar-sweetened water to soothe my wrath.
After a cursory examination by my “doctor in absentee” we were tagged in a manner similar to that used by the Railway Express Agency for shipping crates, and shoved into a waiting meat wagon (ambulance). My fight to retreat was then resumed. In one way, I was hesitant about leaving the aid station, for it was equipped with real live electric light bulbs. It was a touch of Americana in a far and distant alien land. How nostalgic can one become, but that was my sentiment at the moment. I should have realized that both the ambulance ride and bulbs were to be the firsts in a long series of touches of home.
About that time I began to feel warm all over. In my youthful ignorance I thought nothing of it, for as we preceded rearward the warm glow that comes with the feeling of salvation and safety was bound to fill my body with a euphoric sensation. Then I heard one of the medics mention to his buddy that I had an elevation. His words went through my head as swiftly as a bullet would have, for it wasn’t until many a month later that I was to learn that the word medically meant a slight fever.
Again the motors churned to a halt. This time I found myself being carried into a large “pub” which had been lined with tenting to serve as a blackout measure. Yum, yum, more electricity, more cold water with sugar in it, and don’t tell my mother “American nurses”. I didn’t realize that they were nurses at first as they were crossed in olive drab trousers the same as any GI. I was really living!
There was no time for introductions. I was immediately placed upon a table, and despite my embarrassment my clothes were cut away. I found to my bewilderment that it was an X-ray table, and everyone has momentarily disappeared. An eternity later, or in about five minutes of actual time two X-ray technicians appeared. Instead of caring for me they entered into verbal combat over something mighty unimportant. I stoically interrupted this prime example of American solidarity, and asked if they would please recess until they had finished taking the pictures, as my back was killing me. They didn’t stop calling each other bastard, son of a bitch, or whoremonger, but they finished the job. After all they were intelligent men, and could work and converse at the same time. With the picture taking over, I was taken to a complicated looking table and strapped to it. I told the nurse that my legs hurt, to which she replied as she collected my valuables into an empty blood plasma carton; “They always feel that way at first.” “Bingo.” I passed out.
Don’t ask me if I had any pleasant dreams, for I don’t remember. The next thing I knew I was on a GI cot, and a nurse was taking my blood pressure. This I had seen done before, so I asked no questions. Minutes later she again returned only this time with an oversized syringe loaded with something creamy looking. “Roll up your sleeve,” she said. “I’ve got to give you a shot of penicillin. As she outranked me by a few stripes and one bar I had no choice but to obey. When she was withdrawing the needle the doctor came over and said to her, “Lieutenant; today is Tuesday you can have a shower.” “Yes, air” was her nonchalant reply. After the doctor left I said to her, “Pardon me mam, but no you actually get to take showers?” She gave me a strange look and snapped back, “Certainly once a week.” “Gee,” I answered with my dry tongue hanging out. She scratched her head, smiled, and walked away. Before she was beautiful, but now she was gorgeous. “Imagine,” I thought to myself. “A woman in Europe who doesn’t stink; some people seem to have all the luxuries.”
Back came my creature from heaven and with her came a not too ugly doctor. She was loaded for combat as she held in her hands two components of an intravenous set. The doctor’s hand held a bottle of translucent fluid. Sensing trouble I queried, “What are you going to do now?” My doctor in his best but fatherly bedside manner said, “You’ve just had two major operations, and have suffered a great loss of blood. We are going to give this to you to build up your strength.” “What do you mean operations?” I replied. “I didn’t have any operations. “You don’t remember,” he added, “but when you were unconscious we did a laminectomy to help mend the damage to your spine, and a thoracotomy to remove a piece of steel from your chest. Don’t argue with me, just sit up, and stick out your arm.”
I was now on my way through the first year of premed school, but did not realize it. Taking advantage of the fact that the doctor was not going to leave until after successfully inserting the needle into one of my veins I posed the question of my prognosis to him. I did not know that word then; all I wanted to know was what my future outlook was going to be. The doctor in very carefully phrased words said that I should relax and not worry, for in six months I’d be back on my feet. “Hell,” I remarked, “in six months the war will be over; what a bonanza this has turned out to be.” Suddenly the pain from my chest wound began to break through, and I wanted to start yelling for Jesus and everyone else whom I couldn’t possibly reach. In the back of my head as a consolation there was a little guy laughing, drinking, and singing a little ditty, “You lucky bastard you’re going home for good.” The doctor wisely ordered me put under sedation.