I had one rule when I went to war<\/p>\n
That was to kill or be killed<\/p>\n
During my time in the European theatres<\/p>\n
I was a killing machine I spared not one man<\/p>\n
Enemy soldiers and prisoners died by my gun<\/p>\n
I\u00a0 also shot dogs rats cats and balcony bats<\/p>\n
And then the war ended and I was shipped home<\/p>\n
I was given a fucking medal and a reasonable pension<\/p>\n
And then decided to become a sports journalist<\/p>\n
Thoreau said over coffee and buns one day<\/p>\n
That the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation<\/p>\n
Perhaps they did but I liked Thoreau and visited Walden Pond every summer<\/p>\n
But unlike Thoreau I did not travel alone as my buddy Frenchie Pike<\/p>\n
Joined me every year as he apart from me (obviously) were the only survivors<\/p>\n
From our platoon as the others were either killed or simply disappeared<\/p>\n
Unlike me Frenchie tried to limit his killing and somehow survived<\/p>\n
Before the war he owned a small gas station in Money Mississippi<\/p>\n
And had returned to his business somewhat older and richer after the war<\/p>\n
He had been in the area when the poor Chicago boy was murdered in 1955<\/p>\n
Soon after he sold his business and worked on the railroad for many years<\/p>\n
I am invited along with other vets to Germany every year to celebrate (?) and remember the war<\/p>\n
For some reason I always go although I do not have happy or bad memories of the conflict<\/p>\n
I may be subconsciously apologising for my brutality although I doubt this as I never had any regrets<\/p>\n
That was until last year when I was introduced to a woman of my age named Hanna Muller<\/p>\n
She had lost her husband late in the war like many other women as the conflict faded<\/p>\n
It was as I was leaving that she showed me a battered photograph of a young German soldier<\/p>\n
I instantly recognised him as a soldier that I had shot in cold blood (he had abandoned his weapon)<\/em><\/p>\n The whole incident took place near a ruined barn where the man had been resting<\/p>\n He stood up with his arms wide (to show that was no longer a threat<\/em>) and said something that I did not understand<\/p>\n I looked at him for a few seconds then shot him in the face and then looted his body as I was in the habit of doing<\/p>\n Frau Muller spoke good English and told me that her husband had no recorded resting place<\/p>\n It was then that I broke down in tears and after composing myself I told her the whole story<\/p>\n At first she looked shocked but then she stroked my hand lightly and forgave me<\/p>\n She only asked one question and that was if I could remember where her husband died<\/p>\n I told her that I could not remember the exact location but knew the rough area<\/p>\n And that was that she thanked me for the detail and left me totally alone in the memorial hall<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I had one rule when I went to war That was to kill or be killed During my time in the European theatres I was a killing machine I spared not one man Enemy soldiers and prisoners died by my gun I\u00a0 also shot dogs rats cats and balcony bats And then the war ended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11150"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11155,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11150\/revisions\/11155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"