Show with ernie pyle at the front war lad lacks s drama to the real front line GI heroes without exception they want to finish the job and return home by ernie pyle ed note pyle has arrived at albuquerque new Al mexico exico for a rest and to receive the degree of doctor of letters from new mexico alerico university this column was written while he was still in europe WRITTEN ON THE TUNISIAN FRONT the other night I 1 was sitting in the room of col sam gormly a flying fortress commander from los angeles we were looking over a six slaw weeks beeks old copy of an american picture magazine the latest to reach us here it was full of photos and stories of the war dramatic tales from the solomons from russia and right from our own african front the magazine fascinated me and when I 1 had finished I 1 felt an animation a about ou the war I 1 felt in weeks for in the magazine the war seemed romantic and exciting full of heroics and vitality I 1 know it really is and yet I 1 dont seem ernie pyle capable of feeling it only in the magazine from america can I 1 catch the real spirit of the war over here one of the pictures was the long concrete quay where we landed in africa it gave me a little tingle to look at it por eor some perverse reason it was more thrilling to look at the picture than it was to march along the dock itself that first day 1 I dont know what the hells the matter with me I 1 said chere here we are right at the front and yet the war dramatic to me at all when I 1 said that maj alaj quint quick of bellingham wash rose up from his bed onto his elbow quick is a bomber squadron leader and has been in as many fights as any bomber pilot over here he is admired and respected for 0 r what hes been through he said it to me either I 1 know it should be but it its just hard work and all I 1 want is to finish it and get ret back home so I 1 dont know Is war dramatic m abic or it certainly there are great tragedies unbelievable heroics even a constant undertone of comedy it is the job of us writers to transfer all that drama back to you folks at home most of the other correspondents have the ability to do it and speaking of drama ive just passed assed up my only opportunity of being being dramatic in this war it was a tough adough decision either way As youve seen correspond i i ants at last are allowed to go along on bombing missions I 1 am with a bomber group that id known both in england and elsewhere wherein else in africa and many of them are personal friends by now they asked it if I 1 cared to go along on a mission over the hot spot of Bizer bizette te I 1 knew the day of that invitation would come and I 1 dreaded it not to go brands you as a coward to go might make you a slight hero or a dead duck actually I 1 never knew ew what id say until the moment came when it did come I 1 said this no I 1 dont see any sense in my go going ing other correspondents have already gone so I 1 be the first anyhow id be in the way and if I 1 got killed my death would have contributed nothing im running chances just being here without sticking my neck out and asking for it no I 1 think I 1 wont go im too old to be a hero the reaction of the fliers astounded me I 1 expected them to be politely contemptuous of anyone who declined to do just once what they do every day but their attitude was exactly the opposite and you could tell they were sincere and not just being nice anybody who goes when he have to is a plain damn fool one of then them said if I 1 were in your shoes id never go on another mission nother another a pilot said A bombardier with his arm in a sling from flak said youre right A correspondent went with us it any good he have done it A lieutenant colonel who had just got back from a mission said there are only two reasons on earth why anybody should go either because he has to or to show other people he afraid some of us have to show were not afraid you dont have to you decided right I 1 put this all down with such blunt immodesty because some of you may have wondered when im going along to describe a bombing mission for you and if not why not im not going and the reason is that ive rationalized myself into believing that for one in my position my sole purpose in going would be to perpetuate my vanity arid and ive decided to hell bell with vanity I 1 was away from the front lines fines for a while this spring living with other troops and considerable fighting in g took place while I 1 was gone when I 1 got ready to return to my old friends at the front I 1 wondered if I 1 would sense any change in them the most vivid change is the casual and workshop manner in which they now talk about killing they have made the psychological transition from the normal belief that taking human life Is sinful over to a new professional outlook where killing is a craft to them now there is nothing morally wrong about killing in fact it is an admirable thing I 1 think I 1 am so impressed by this new attitude because it been necessary for me t to 0 make this change along with them As a noncombatant my own life is in danger only by occasion occasional al chance or circumstance consequently I 1 need not think of killing in personal terms and killing to me is still murder even after a winter of living with wholesale death and vile destruction it is only spasmodically that I 1 seem capable of realizing how real and how awful th iswar is my emotions seem dead and crusty when presented with the tangibles tangi bles of war I 1 find I 1 can look on rows of fresh graves without a lump in my throat somehow I 1 can look on mutilated bodies without flinching or feeling deeply it is only when I 1 sit alone away from it all or lie at night in in my bedroom recreating with closed eyes what I 1 have seen thinking and thinking and thinking in that at last the enormity of all these newly dead strikes like a living nightmare and there are times when I 1 feel that I 1 cant stand it and will have to leave but to the fighting soldier that phase of the war is behind it was left behind after his first battle his blood is up he is fighting for his life and killing now for him is as much a profession as writing is for me aie he wants to kin kill individually or in vast numbers he wants to see the germans overrun mangled butchered in the tunisian trap he speaks excitedly of seeing great heaps of dead of our bombers sinking whole shiploads ship loads of fleeing men of germans by the thousands dying miserably in a final tunisian holocaust of his own creation in this one respect the front line soldier differs from all the rest of us all the rest of us ns you and me and even the thousands of soldiers behind the lines of africa we want terribly yet only academically for the war to get over the front line soldier wants it to be got over by the physical process of his destroying ying enough germans to end it ile he is truly at war the rest of us no matter how bow hard we work are not say what you will nothing can make a complete soldier except battle experience in the semifinals semi finals of this campaign the cleaning out of central tunisia we had large units in battle for the first time frankly they all excel their own commanders admit it and admirably they dont try to alibi the british had to help us out a few times but neither american nor british commanders are worried about that for there was no lack of bravery there was only lack of experience |