and it was where the German High Command had figured, exactly, to fight after Aachen had been taken and the road into Germany breached. I hope I am not boring you.”
“You never bore me. Nothing about fighting bores me except lies.”
“You’re a strange girl.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve known that for quite a long time.”
“Would you really like to fight?”
“I don’t know if I could do it. But I could try if you taught me.”
“I’ll never teach you. I’ll just tell you anecdotes.”
“Sad stories of the death of kings.”
“No. GI’s somebody christened them. God how I hate that word and how it was used. Comic book readers. All from some certain place. Most of them there unwillingly. Not all. But they all read a paper called ‘The Stars and Stripes’ and you had to get your unit into it, or you were unsuccessful as a commander. I was mostly unsuccessful. I tried to like the correspondents and there were some very good ones present at this meeting. I will not name names because I might omit some fine ones and that would be unjust. There were good ones that I don’t remember. Then, there were draft dodgers, phonies who claimed they were wounded if a piece of spent metal ever touched them, people who wore the purple heart from jeep accidents, insiders, cowards, liars, thieves and telephone racers. There were a few deads missing from this briefing. They had deads too. A big percentage. But none of the deads were
