Ted Getzel Works

Louie #3

He taught me not to volunteer

And told me how it felt to fear.

“Don’t volunteer, never volunteer for nothing and don’t ever volunteer anyone else either,” said Louie.

“Why not, if I want to help out, why not? I asked.

“Let me tell you a little story, why you shouldn’t volunteer.”

I loved when he told me stories; he did at bedtime for years.

One day when I was over in the war the Captain came up to me and said he needed some volunteers to go back and do some work in Antwerp. Now that sounded good to me. See we were at the front and it was bad for me and my boys, and Antwerp was way, way behind the frontlines –so I figure it’ll be like a little vacation for me and the platoon. So I told Captain Shoemaker that I would do it.

The captain said, “You just made the Colonel very happy Sergeant Getzel.”

So me and the rest of the guys get in our trucks and head back down the road to Antwerp. Everyone agrees with me it was a good move.

So we get to Antwerp and you know what the job was?

No, what?

A V1, a buzz bomb, had made a direct hit on an ammunition train in this huge railroad marshalling yard fill with all these trains loaded with ammo and shells and bombs –and the train that got hit started burning and exploding and spreading to the cars and trains. Our job was to go in there and uncouple the cars that weren’t exploding from the ones that were and move them out of the yard so they wouldn’t catch.

So I’m walking through this hell hole and a piece of a 155mm shell go past the tip of my nose , I felt the heat it was white hot and sticks itself into the ground between my two feet, Its white hot and vibrating humming just like a bee. It missed my whosit and whatsits by an inch. I pissed and shit myself as I slowly backed away.-