A child-soldier's view of war, told to his grandchildren, many years later. by Bob Nightingale
(libertarian)
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
My grandfather was a veteran of the Kaiser's army. He grew up in the city of Rixdorf, which is now a part of Berlin, Germany. He lived in a fifth floor apartment with his parents and two sisters. His most vivid memories were of the Kaiser's majestic parades with ornate carriages and men in tall hats, riding horses or marching, wearing their sharp uniforms. My grandfather learned about music by watching the violin players perform on Sunday afternoons. In the spring, he and the other boys would work planting trees on hills on a farm just outside of town. He had a sack of saplings and a stick. Every couple feet, he would poke a hole and drop his sapling in. It was hard work, but everyone worked hard then.
His childhood came to an end about the time he was thirteen. The crazy Prussian Kaiser decided it was time for war. He would say that the Kaiser was "verruckt in dem Kopf", or "crazy in the head". The war started as something very far away. As time went on, food was harder to come by. Men would leave and not come back. That's what the war needed the most, more men to fight. Near the end they had to recruit old men and boys. At thirteen, my grandfather got to wear one of those uniforms and carry a gun.
He heard machine guns and explosions. He saw much more than he cared to say. One story he told was about a man with a glass eye. The man figured out how to stay out of battle. When things got bad, he would pop out his glass eye and yell, "my eye, my eye!" A sergeant would tell him to go back to the medical tent. One sergeant got wise to him. The next time the man was in battle and yelled out "my eye, my eye!' The sergeant reached into his pocket and presented him handful of glass eyes to choose from. "Pick one."
War is chaotic. One night his company had moved out, and someone had forgotten to tell him. He walked back to camp and it was empty. Although later he met other soldiers, he could not find his unit. Not knowing what else to do, he decided to go home. He was near the eastern front. Apparently it took him a long time to walk back. Cars and horses were scarce.
When he did get home, his mother thought she was seeing a ghost. He was declared missing in action and presumed dead. His family had cashed in his life insurance policy. For the next several months, he hid so his parents would not get in trouble. They couldn't pay the money back.
After the war was over, life was hard for years after that. Work was hard to find and prices kept going up. Eventually his uncle in America needed more men to work in his battery shop in Philadelphia. But that's another story.
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