Coming Home

One cold afternoon last week, at New York's Halloran (Army) Hospital, a long hospital train stood on the siding. Out of the hospital, walking, hobbling, on crutches, on stretchers, came the young wounded veterans of World War II. The men were just five days back in the U.S., just two weeks out of North Africa, veterans of Tunisia, Sicily, Salerno and Naples. The train would take them to Midwest Army hospitals, where they would be near home.

The train was clean and comfortable, with the antiseptic smell of a hospital. Each ward car had an operating room. Nurses in stiffly starched uniforms walked down the aisles. Just before it pulled out, chaplains came on, bringing cigarets and candy, magazines and books.

Also on board was the New York Times's Meyer Berger, one of the most professional of U.S. reporters. He stayed with the train until it reached Fletcher General Hospital in Cambridge, Ohio, watching the faces of the wounded, listening to their talk as they came nearer & nearer home. It was a memorable ride. Next day Reporter Berger sent his newspaper a story which well & truly evoked the heartbreaking feelings of the returning soldier:

Afternoon in Jersey. "Twilight came early. Lights were turned on as the train raced smoothly southward through New Jersey. . . . The soldiers stared at the whizzing landscape, at bright-paned homes merging with descending dark. . . . They dreamed on it with hungry eyes. One lad not more than 21, his leg amputated, told the soldier across the aisle: 'Even the dump piles look swell.' The other soldier nodded: 'You ain't kiddin!'

"The ward cars filled with . . . excited exclamations at sight of lighted street lamps along the highways. . . . Attendants came in with supper trays for the litter cases and the warm ward car filled with the odor of roast chicken and hot potatoes. A soldier grinned happily: 'Real American chicken!'

"The walking wounded limped toward the diner. The mental cases walked slowly behind them. They laughed and chattered, stopping at the windows along the way to stare and stare again with a hungry look. . . . Half an hour later, well-fed, they limped back to their places, all aglow. Resuming his place at a window, a soldier said: 'I gotta keep looking back. I keep thinking maybe it will fade out, like a movie.'

"By and by the men pulled out headboards and started on rummy, pinochle, hearts and blackjack. Some read comics and newspapers. A soldier looked up from his paper . . . and read names of brands from the sheet--names of cigarets, cigars, foods, liquors--and the card players grinned at the sound of them. . . . Men called out the names of stations--Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Cumberland. . . .

"A corporal spoke dreamily of the nights in Howie Dryman's Texaco Bar & Grill across the river from Vincennes, Ind. 'I'll smoke fresh cigarets,' he said, 'not cigarets that's beat up and spilling both ends.'

Night in Pennsylvania. "There was talk of Arabs--A-rabs they all pronounced it--and desert storms. They talked GI talk and said they wouldn't trade their war experiences for a million dollars. They talked of their families and about their girls. A slender amputation case in a lower, still staring through the window into the dark countryside, said: 'I knew a real sure-enough model' and went on in detail about her. 'She sounds like something,' another soldier said. The slender kid was silent a minute and the train clicked and the steam pipes knocked and clanked. Finally he said: 'Sure was. She sure was something.'

"After 9 o'clock the nurses started alcohol baths for the litter cases. One nurse had to dig for bread crumbs that had worked into a cast under a soldier's chest. He laughed about it. Another cast case said: 'Wish I'd thought of that' and the car roared with laughter. . . "

"A private recalled, as several others had, the effect of his telephone call to his wife and parents: 'They couldn't really talk for a while, they was that choked up. My wife said she didn't just know what to say and when I said maybe I'd be home for Christmas then she just busted out crying. . . .'

"One by one they fell asleep, even the neuropsychiatrics in the next car. You heard only even breathing after the coughing died down. A kid in a lower told the nurse as she came down the aisle: 'I'm just wishing for daylight. I want to see what's going on outside.'

Morning in Pittsburgh. "Daylight was slow and wintry in Pittsburgh. A Negro boy recognized it as his home town and murmured ecstatically: 'Hello there, Pittsburgh,' and just stared at the slag, the dust and the coal as if they were things of beauty. . . .

"There was hilarity and joy at a block-long black and white sign 'Iron City Brewery Company.' The men talked about American beer almost with reverence. . . .

"At Dennison, Ohio, a small town near Cambridge, women came to the windows as the train pulled in. Children fresh from church stood in awed groups and just waved. The soldiers waved back. Pvt. Gerard Heil, a broad, red-faced soldier, couldn't contain his excitement.

" 'There's the Coca-Cola factory where I work,' he said. 'That red brick building. There's Jim Cardina's Bar and Green's restaurant. That woman with the books, that's Miss Cottrell. She's cashier at the Palace Movie.' The words poured from his lips. He sighted Tommy Maitland and Roy Albaugh, fellow workers. They called to him: 'Hello, Jerry.'

"Pvt. Heil said: 'That's me they're callin'. That's what they call me--Jerry.' The train moved on and Pvt. Heil named all the buildings that slid by.

"The men stared at the sunlit, rolling hills, at the bare trees and the brown weed-husks in the meadows. . . . Another soldier, named Pvt. General Ulysses Grant Cooper, a blue-eyed man from Beckley in West Virginia, seemed to be rehearsing what he'd tell his townsfolk when he got back.

" 'They won't believe about them Arabs,' he said. 'They won't believe when I tell them it's all thorns and brush over there. I'll show 'em in the geography . . . I just want to roam over the same ground around Beckley and Flat Top, same as I roamed before I left. My feet's itchin' just to roam.' "

The wounded boys were coming home.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.