WWE - Worth Fighting For

Prompts for November 4th, due by next week, November 11th--Armistice Day.

• Include major world conflict as a theme or mere mention or something inbetween
• Something needs to =pop=
• Use the word focus
• Include a line from a National Anthem (any country)
• Optional--a famous person must appear in the article
• tag with wwe

Worth Fighting For

Pvt. William Patterson understood very little of the world when he joined Charlie  Company just weeks after D-Day.

How much he had grown, how much he had learned, in the months that followed.

He stepped off the train, at the Repple Depple, a fresh recruit from the states – all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as his momma would say – with no real concept of combat, front lines, death, war, cold, hunger, or fear.

Tonight, deep in a freezing foxhole, he understood all these things and more.

He hated the war, but he hated the enemy more.  And now, just days before Christmas 1944, he could almost believe General Patton’s words, “Courage is fear holding on a minute longer”, applied to him personally.

He’d seen the General, at a stopover in France, and had heard him utter those words.

He hadn’t understood them, then, but he did now, and every night, for the last three nights, he had a ritual he conformed to.  Call it superstition, but he believed that by reciting the last line of the Star-Spangled Banner, “…And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”, and repeating General Patton’s quote, he’d live to see at least another sunrise.

And so it was, this cold December night.

As he began his nightly ritual, his new foxhole-mate, Pvt. Steven Alberson, whispered, “Boots, what the hell are you doing?”  (A new recruits boots were so clean that the guys heading back home – their filthy boots often held together with little more than the hope they’d soon be leaving this godforsaken battle – immediately nicknamed a lot of the new recruits “Boots”.  In William’s case, the nickname stuck.)

“Shhhhhhhh…..Alberson….you wanna bring the whole Kraut army down on top of us?” 

“Pssshh…even Krauts gotta sleep sometime.”

William didn’t respond, but he knew something the new guy didn’t. 

Krauts never sleep.

Alberson was his new foxhole-mate, for that very reason.

William looked at the new kid, and since he was too edgy to sleep (he desperately wanted a cigarette, but didn’t dare light up for fear of giving away their position) he thought about Digger.

Up until three nights ago, William had been joined – practically at the hip – with one of his best buddies from basic, Cpl. James (Digger) Dennon.  Digger had gotten his nickname because he could dig a foxhole faster than any man in their platoon, bar none.  Digger was proud of this accomplishment, and William was very glad they’d teamed up.  The ability to dig a foxhole, quickly, had probably saved their bacon more than once.

You see, the daylight was made for moving along the front lines, but as night fell you better be busy digging your foxhole or your loved ones were apt to get a telegram from the War Department.

The problems with digging foxholes, out here in the German countryside, were numerous – the ground was often full of roots, since the holes were dug near treelines – and it was frozen, or it was so wet as to be rendered into a paste that made it impossible to shovel.

None of these things deterred Digger.  He was the best damned foxhole digger in the whole of Charlie Company, or so he thought, and he dug hole after hole, night after endless night.  And the nights, they were endless…with darkness often lasting sixteen hours.

The nighttime hours belonged to the Krauts, and anyone who thought differently got a lesson in humility, sometimes a fatal one.

It all made for incredibly harsh conditions for the men on the front lines, and William and Digger were not immune to the slow onset of the insanity fueled by the situation.

“Just shoot me in the foot,” Digger had whispered one night a week ago.

“What??” William replied, incredulously.

“Seriously, Boots, I don’t think I can take one more night out here.” Digger sobbed softly.

“You bastard! You think I’m going to shoot you in the foot so you can go home and leave me out here alone?” William punched Digger in the arm.

“Fine buddy you turned out to be.” Digger giggled, and the subject was dropped.

The conversation left William a little rattled, Digger was invincible in his eyes, but since it didn’t come up again he decided to just leave it lie.

And then, William didn’t know if it had been the cold, the hunger, the driving sleet, the lack of sleep, or a combination of all these things, but three nights ago Digger had suddenly jumped up out of their foxhole screaming and waving his arms like a raving lunatic.

“Hey, you stinkin’ Krauts! Here I am, come and get me!”

‘Pop, Pop, Pop’ the reply was a series of shots, each one hitting Digger, the last right between the eyes, as he fell back into the foxhole and onto William’s lap.

Desperately wanting to scream for a medic William’s rational mind quickly focused on the situation, and prevented him from uttering a sound. Instead he had repeated General Patton’s quote and reminded himself to hang on one more moment.

As he sat there, his dead buddy’s vacant stare looking up at him, waiting for help to come, the Star-Spangled Banner kept playing over in his mind. It was as if it was a subconscious reminder that there were things worth fighting for, and that Digger, in the end, hadn’t been able to remember what they were.

William closed his eyes, and tried to sleep, after having re-played the death of Digger for the hundredth time in his mind.

“Hey, Boots” Alberson whispered, just as William was about to drop off.

“What?” he replied, irritated at the interruption of what little sleep he might get.

“So, tell me, really, why you do that whole ritual every night.” Alberson’s face was earnest, and William could see the new guy was a little frightened.

“Tomorrow, kid, I’ll tell you then. Now get some sleep.” William closed his eyes and for a while the war was the dream, and his dreams were his reality.  Dreams in which he was home, warmed by the fire, the soft sounds of laughter coming from the kitchen where he knew his mother was cooking dinner, and his father was acting in his capacity as official taster.

A safe haven, a place worth fighting for.