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Pops Martin
He didn't land on D Day, or for about a week afterward. He was with our rear
echelon, which included most of Service Battery and all the kitchen trucks and mess
personnel. We subsisted on C-, K-, and 5-in-1 rations, which we ate right out of the
packages or cooked ourselves over little fires or Coleman burners. We were happy to see
the kitchens and to have Corporal Martin bring real food again.
It was late in the severe winter of 1944-45 when Corporal Martin fell out of the
hayloft of a barn where he and some others were sleeping. I don't recall what bone he
broke, but it was a serious one, and he had to be evacuated back to a base hospital. We
never expected to see him again.
At the time of the accident, Service Battery had a vacancy for a sergeant's
position, and Captain I. W. Smith, commanding, had not yet filled it. So when Pops
Martin fell out of the loft, he was a corporal, but when he landed, he had become a
sergeant. His job didn't call for a sergeancy, but he had performed nobly, and he might as
well draw a sergeant's pay while he was a patient. And we never expected to see him
again,
But he surprised us. In the spring, shortly after the war was over, here he came,
showing his dentures in a big grin, his sleeves emblazoned with sergeant's chevrons.
Someone else was now ration clerk, but Sergeant Martin made himself useful as an
interpreter in doing business with the officials of Schwandorf, the major town in our zone
of occupation. His German was pretty rusty, but much better than mine.
How had he gotten back? An interesting story. He had been told by the hospital
personnel that as soon as he was well enough to be released from the hospital, he would
be shipped back to the States for discharge. The war, after all, was about over, and so was
his life.
The news filled him with gloom. He had hoped to come back to his boys in
Service Battery, 915th. He was sitting on the side of his bed with big tears streaming
down the wrinkles in his cheeks when the hospital commander, a grizzled colonel of
medics, came by on an inspection of his domain.
"What's your trouble, Sergeant?"
"Dey say I can't go back to my outfit, sir. Dey say I'm too oldt. "
"Too old," muttered the colonel, looking at the age spots on his own hands.
"How old are you?"
"Sixty-three, sir."
"Too old! Why Son, you're right in the prime of life! Who told you that?" And so,
true to form, Pops Martin found us again.
235, (236 blank)
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