For boys like Jimmy and Anton and me, war was sport, glory and romance, a wild adventure. In the closing months of World War II, when I was 14, I lied about my age and enlisted in the U.S. Merchant Marine. A year later I joined the army the same way. In those days they would take anyone capable of fitting into a uniform, counting cadence to four and hefting a rifle–no questions asked. Thousands of other American kids joined up the same way. On the battlefield we were either braver than brave or dumber than dumb. The older I get, the more I think it was the latter. Boys make great warriors. Their willingness to take crazy risks soon leaves many of them dead or disabled. The ones who survive become wary and seasoned veterans, 15 going on 50.
During the Korean War I led an all-volunteer unit of U.S. Army Raiders. I was “the old man” at 20. Our job was to slip behind enemy lines and blow things up, kill enemy soldiers or take them prisoner. One typical member of our unit was Johnny Watson, a boy pushing 16 from a coal-mining town. He was like many teenagers with guns: reckless, careless and totally without fear. He didn’t seem to care what a burning piece of shrapnel could do to a soldier’s kneecap or what a single bullet could do to his chest. Our patrol came under fire one day, and afterward we hauled Johnny to a first-aid station bleeding from more holes than he had places. It was obvious that he would never walk again. Maybe he knew it. But he laughed and cracked jokes all the way.
On our last mission, only six of the unit’s 70 Raiders came back unhurt. Many had been hit two or three times, but they refused evacuation. They didn’t want to let their comrades down. That Raider unit was the closest thing to a real family a lot of those kids ever had. The horror of what they had lived through would dawn gradually. And then it never goes away. The younger the combatant, the deeper the burn. Late at night, alone, you refight the old battles. You see the carnage, the broken bodies, the faces of the fallen: the children you loved as brothers, and trusted with your life.
