Human Weakness (Moritz)

[rspeirs]

It was almost December of 1944, and Speirs had just returned home from a miserable campaign in Holland. His men of the 3ID were beaten severely back by SS troops. After his retreat, the 101st Airborne was able to take partial control of the city of Eindhoven. That is, until night fell. Once night fell, the city was bombed into oblivion. Upon the next day, which Colonel Robert Sink of the 506th PIR declared Black Friday, the Airborne was beaten back out of Eindhoven. Not only this, but Bernard Law Montgomery, the commander of the British 21st Army Group, was torn to shreds by the Wehrmacht under Wilhelm Bittrich. Ron wanted to forget his darkest hours thus far in this war. He was ashamed of his failure to command his troops. He was ashamed of the mutiny that had occurred under him, and most of all, he was ashamed that he let down Captain Patterson.

Now this day in December was bitter cold and cloudy, and Speirs had arisen early, as he often did. It wasn’t that Speirs couldn’t sleep. On the contrary, Speirs always rose early as he liked to get in a morning workout. On this particular day it was 0700 when Speirs decided to get out of bed. He sat up and licked his lips, which were dry from the night’s sleep. Speirs was wearing a pair of PT shorts, but no shirt, as the 1st Sergeant did not like to sleep with a shirt on. He moved his legs to the side of the bed and sat up. Walking over to the window, Speirs wanted to see how cold it was, as he wanted to take a jog this morning. Jogging always relieved the constant pressures of this tiresome and arduous war. He opened the window and was immediately met by a cold wind, which brought a chill to his spine, sending the hairs on the back of his neck up immediately. Speirs chuckled to himself, saying, “Guess I won’t be running today.” Still, Speirs wanted to get in some type of exercise. It was unlike him to go long durations of time without working out. So, he decided to hit the weight room in the barracks. Speirs took a tank top from his drawer and through it on over his bare skin. He grabbed his dog tags, and moved them so they were visible. Speirs then proceeded to grab a brush from his nightstand, and comb his hair into a poor excuse for a comb over. Speirs then proceeded to put his shoes on and walk out the door.

The day was cold, and Speirs moved swiftly outside to the training facility. Along the way, Speirs passed a couple privates, who acknowledged him with a salute. Speirs smiled and nodded his head in reply, but he did not stop. He wanted to get out of the wretched cold as fast as possible. The weight room quickly approached on the horizon, and Speirs quickened his pace, motivated as ever to get out of the cold. Speirs reached the weight room in about five minutes, and he quickly opened the door and entered. Inside, there was a plethora of equipment to use.

Speirs made his way over to the dumb bells. He picked up to 35 pounders and sat down on a bench. He had decided on his way over to the room that he would work his biceps, and Speirs promptly began doing concentration curls. He lifted the weights easily at first, but after around the 6th repetition, his arms began to ache, and he struggled to get out a 7th and then an 8th. After the 8th, Speirs tossed the weight into his left hand, the weaker of the two. He got out a good 5, and then began to struggle once more. As he lifted, Speirs became frustrated at his weakness, and muttered to himself, saying “Damn, this used to be easy…” Speirs grunted as he got out an 8th, and then he dropped the weight.

Then, something peculiar caught Speirs eye. A man was in the far corner of the room watching him. Speirs looked up towards him, and hollered, saying “You need something?” Speirs then realized the man was a Lieutenant, and Speirs shot up quickly, saluting the CO, saying “Lieutenant...Damn, didn’t realize you were there at first.” Speirs felt embarrassed, but he tried not to show it as he stood at attention.

[Moritz Erichsen]

December was supposed to be a beautiful time of the year. Children loved to play with the snow, create snowmen and eat pudding, helping the grown-ups in decorating the Christmas tree and often whining loudly and demanding they placed the star on top of the tree themselves, and that they needed no help in doing so. Christmas was a time during which people were given the chance to spend a lovely evening together, enjoy a well-cooked and wonderful dinner, sit together by the warm and crackling fireplace with someone played a merry tune on the piano and they all sang together the carols. Christmas was a time for happiness. And yet it was not for the soldiers, it was not for the world, and it was not to be happy this year for anyone, not while hundreds of people were dying of bullets or coldness, when children were left orphaned and when mothers gave birth alone and neglected to children they had never wished to have. No, this was not Christmas. And yet it was. Moritz rested his body against the cold stone wall of the weight room, surrounded by darkness and not bothering to switch on the light. It was better that way, he could think more clearly. Mourn more deeply.

They had lost many men that year. Both sides had. In war one could hardly tell the winner from the loser, considering both sides had sustained such heavy losses in human resources and military equipment as made it nearly impossible to distinguish for whom the bell tolled. The Operation Market Garden, commenced in 17th September and lasting for eight days, had demanded the seizure of bridges chiefly across the Meuse River and two arms of the Rhine, the Waal and the Lower Rhine (in addition to less significant canals and tributaries), and determined a narrow salient between the cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen, an operation which initially was successful and which had yet failed to liberate several parts of the Southern Netherlands. Moritz had a long scar across his arm to remind him of the success. Five days later Operation Aintree had been launched, during which American forces had joined the British in the east of North Brabant and in Limburg in defeating the lingering German troops west of the Meuse until early December. They had managed to annihilate the German bridgehead between the Meuse and the Peel marshes, and during this co-allied offensive the Battle of Overloon saw the only tank battle taken place on Dutch soil, during which the town of Vernay had been liberated. This had adorned him with another wound on his left leg, which had rendered it difficult for him to counter-react during a bombardment, saved by Private Matthews the last minute when he carried the Lieutenant quickly out of harm’s way. Private Matthews was now dead.

The beginning of October found the Germans retaining their occupation zone in Walcheren as well as the Scheldt estuary along with the port of Antwerp. In fact, in September Winston Churchill had written to his chiefs-of-staff, underscoring the significance of the island of Walcheren and the port of Antwerp – seizure of the port would bring a solution to the British supply problem which, funnily enough, had been caused once Allied victories had commenced. The so-called ‘supply famine’ the British forces suffered throughout September (Moritz recalled bitterly) would be brought to an end once the Allies seized the port of Antwerp, which could hold one thousand ships at a time, weighing up to nineteen thousand tons each, and handled forty thousand tons of a supplies per day, a fact which the Senior Allied commanders could not simply put aside. From October 2 to November 8 the Battle of the Scheldt had taken place, during which the First Canadian Army struggled on both sides of the estuary with the intention to clear the waterways. Several other battles had occurred in order to clear areas still held under the German occupation, such as the Breskens Pocket, Woensdrecht and the Zuid-Beveland Peninsula. These had given Moritz five more large scars across his back, chest and neck, and more soldiers had fallen dead while at his command.

The German resistance south of the Scheldt had collapsed by 31st October, a point in time when the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division, British 52nd Lowland Division and 4th Special Service Brigade all proceeded with launching attacks on the island of Walcheren, which proved to be less successful at the beginning due to fierce German defensive, to which the Allied forces responded by bombing the dykes of the island at Westkapelle, Vlissingen and Veere with the intention to flood the island. As the cold days of November were heralded, the island’s coastal guns were put in silence and the Battle of the Scheldt had been proclaimed as finished. A commando attack had ascertained that German occupation and control of Walcheren had been brought to an end. However, due to the Scheldt needing to be swept for mines, the first light boats could freely sail up the Scheldt to Antwerp only after November 28th, on which day the first large boats used the port. The liberation of Antwerp had requested excessive sacrifices in human resources, having lost 703 officers with 12,170 other ranks killed, wounded or lost in action, presumed dead. Moritz had lost Corporal Lloyd, a most keen and analytical thinker whom Moritz did not know how value he possessed for the team until he lost him. The Lieutenant was not the man to grieve and mourn, as little did he care for human lives, drowned in his own fierce nature and oftentimes barbaric rationality. However, he was not the man he once used to be when the war had started. The year 1939 seemed so long ago, he felt old and wrinkled, and yet he was only at the end of his twenties. Human weakness had gotten the better of him, and he could not help but feel used, tired, wearisome of everything, to the point where even the sight of a gun began to disgust him.

The lights came on, and in walked Sergeant Speirs. Moritz only smoked quietly, his fingers looped around the Bolshevik cigarette and watching the man carefully. He had the feeling the man, too, was wearisome of something. The man spoke to him,a t first rudely, but then fixed his manners and saluted him properly. Moritz retained his silence and stared at him openly, smoking, exhaling fume from his mouth as it dissolved into the air. He knew the Speirs considered the Netherlands campaigns as not worthy of their trouble (they had lost so many men after all), and though Moritz was not the man to comfort others or be in any way, shape or form encouraging, when he spoke his voice was quiet but firm, emotionless but something lurked there to suggest a feeling of disarray and uncertainty for himself. Had all those scars his body was bearing, a heavy burden, been for nothing? Had all those soldiers fighting for King and Country found their demise only to have their corpses sent in a box to their families along with meaningless medals of honour? Moritz almost felt tainted at having these scars, they were remainders of those lost souls who had fought alongside him and died sometimes protecting him from danger. It was hard to believe, but beneath the coal-back eyes was guilt. Raw, suppurating guilt. “You fought well, Sergeant. You fought well.”

[rspeirs]

“You fought well Sergeant, you fought well.” The British Lieutenant said to Speirs. Speirs did not know what the Lieutenant meant by this, and he laughed in disbelief of the comment. Had he not seen the amount of bloodshed that took place in Arnhem? In Eindhoven? Speirs watched as innocent Dutch men, women, and children were killed by bombs being dropped from planes. Ron watched as his own men, his own friends were torn apart by 88 shells. Speirs also watched as Tiger tanks roamed down the streets of Eindhoven freely, ready to take out any American in the open. Moreover, Speirs remembered his failure to capture the causeway he was assigned. The 2nd Waffen SS Division obliterated his men, and even though the skirmish itself was a tactical stalemate the fact that Speirs lost more men than the Krauts hung over his head and weighed him down. Speirs laughed and turned away for a second. Ron then turned back, look the Lieutenant in the eyes and asked “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

Speirs however, did not wait for the reply. As the Lieutenant went to open his mouth, Speirs dug into him, saying in a biting tone, yet still keeping his voice under control “Lieutenant, do you know the pain I feel every day? I lost men out there. Good men. I lost men because of my incompetence as a field commander. It hangs over my head every day like a damn burden. It sickens me. I hate the fact that I let that poor private die in a trench, the only sound comforting him as he slipped into a cold, black death was the sound of Kraut gunfire and myself barking orders to move to the right flank, leaving him to die alone. It sickens me that I called for a flanking maneuver on a hunch that the Germans would not move, not to take into account the fact that my men didn’t know this, and they stayed put, thinking it was a suicide mission. It sickens me that I stayed in that trench as Kraut 88s ripped through the Dutch scenery, destroying a windmill, which toppled onto my dying private, which I left alone. It sickens me that for seven damn days we were powerless to stop the Krauts.” Speirs then stopped, hesitated for a second or two, and then continued, picking up in his vehemence, saying “Most of all, Lieutenant, it sickens me that while my boys were dying on Market Garden’s D-Day, your boy, what’s his name? Montgomery? Yep, Montgomery, decided to sit down, take a break, and have tea and crumpets with his men.” Speirs turned away and walked over to a Pec Dec machine, resting his arm on the two pendulant levers. His frustration was getting the best of him. He turned again, saying with rancor “It’s no wonder Patton hates Ol’ Monty’s ass. That man is nothing but a pompous chicken shit.”

Speirs realized all he had just said might have offended the Lieutenant. He realized he could possibly be reprimanded for being so frank with a ranking officer, and yet Speirs felt no compunction. He knew what all he said, and Speirs agreed with all he said. He hated Montgomery after Arnhem, and he blamed Montgomery for the loss in Holland more than he did Maxwell Taylor. He hated that pompous smile of Montgomery’s. Ron wanted to wipe it off of his face himself. Speirs also hated the way Monty showed constant disrespect to Patton in his men in the African theatre. In Speirs’ mind, Patton was a good person and an even better commander. The way Montgomery treated him in Africa, and moreover, Sicily, well it made Speirs sick to his stomach to say the least. If Speirs could only get to be in a room alone with Montgomery, the things Speirs would say, or rather, do, would be so reprehensible that they would warrant a court marshal.

Speirs had now tried to calm himself. He breathed in deeply, realizing now the full spectrum of what he said. Before the Lieutenant responded to his remark, Speirs interjected, saying “Sir…” Speirs paused. “Please forgive my statement. I’m frustrated, that’s all. I am frustrated with myself. I am frustrated with the 3ID. I am frustrated with Montgomery. I am frustrated with this war.” Speirs knew he was weak, and if he wanted to overcome the tyranny of Nazi Germany, he would have to overcome that weakness.

[Edward"Butcher"McMillan]

Moderation Post:

The following CP has been issued:

Speirs - 3CP (Will go to unit [3ID] as you are no longer a member and have no other characters)

Erichsen - 3CP

-JT