Normandy 1944 : A Young Rifleman's War

[Confluence Logansport]

This post is intended as a tribute to often quoted here Dick
Stodghill. Mr. Stodghill passed away November 8, 2009. The post
includes Stodghill's introduction of the piece and then a sample from
his book Normandy 1944 : A Young Rifleman's War

I’ve been writing about the experiences of an 18-year-old soldier in
the 4th Infantry (Ivy) Division for decades. Perhaps it’s a release
for me, although nothing can erase the memories. Or maybe it’s a
tribute to the fine men I saw die among those bloody hedgerows. Maybe
it’s because of some that lived, men like Eddie Wolfe, my platoon
sergeant and the bravest man I’ve known. Whatever, a few excerpts from
that book will be posted here from time to time. Here's the first:

PRELUDE TO WAR

As boys growing up during the Great Depression we were self-reliant
by necessity. We were aware of the problems troubling the grownups, of
course. We knew about the Okies, the dust bowl, the breadlines, the
railroad hoboes, the shantytowns called Hoovervilles. We knew that
jobs were scarce, that even those fortunate enough to have one made
little money and few among them enjoyed a sense of security. Many
years later several fathers of boys I had known at that time told
stories of tramping the streets of Akron all day in a vain search for
work, of coming home tired and hun­gry, then pretending to have no
appetite so that what little food there was could go to the children.

For them it was hell. For those of us too young to remember any other
way of life it was as normal as breathing in and breathing out. The
one thing we didn’t know was prosperity, something we were told was
just around the corner. In retrospect I believe we were better off in
many ways than kids growing up under more affluent conditions. We
learned to imp­rovise and to make do with what we had. At the time it
seemed like all that we needed, and it was.

We played with coverless baseballs wrapped in friction tape, bats held
together with wood screws and more tape. We shared dime store
fielders’ gloves or played barehanded. We combed the streets and all­
eys and vacant lots for empty soda pop bottles, then if we were lucky
in the hunt took them to the corner store to collect the deposit. We
saved nearly every­thing we found. A discarded two-by-four, an orange
crate and a worn out pair of roller skates could be fashioned into a
fine scooter. Large cardboard boxes and scrap lumber became a
clubhouse furnished with three legged chairs and more orange crates.
Nearly everyone had a ball of tinfoil and another of string and both
grew steadily larger.