march and herding and directing units like cowboy trail bosses, and another twenty-four hours, to sort out the 2nd Panzer Division and get it moving again.
News that they had arrived at Grafenwohr was greeted with moans and groans by Captain Hilary Cole and the other nurses of the 553rd Field Hospital. Somehow in their minds they had come to believe that once they were out of the Czech Republic and back in Germany things would be different, that everything would be all over. The long, seemingly pointless road marches in the back of a cold five-ton cargo truck were supposed to end.
There would be, they thought, no more endless waiting as they sat on the side of nameless roads waiting for another column to pass and gnawed at cold combat rations. And the jerky stop and go, stop and go, as they wound their way through the Czech mountains, would be over once they were in Germany.
So it came as a rude shock when the trucks pulled into a loose circle in the middle of a large well-used gravel and mud parking area, and they were informed that they were at Grafenwohr. The unit first sergeant could have told them any other German name and, although Cole and the other nurses would have been unhappy, they would not have suffered the severe depression that hit them when the word 'Grafenwohr' was mentioned. Built as a training area with numerous tank and artillery live-fire ranges and maneuver areas by the Wehrmacht before World War II, elements of Erwin Rommel's famed Afrika Korps, as well as units of the elite and notorious Waffen SS, had trained there during the war. Taken over by the Americans after the war with little done to improve creature comforts, few soldiers serving in Germany escaped the horror of doing time there. Grafenwohr was to those soldiers who went there to train synonymous with misery, discomfort, cold, wet, sleeplessness, and every other word that is used to describe the pain and discomfort a soldier experiences when serving in the field under the worst possible conditions. It was described by more than a few American soldiers as the armpit of the world.
It didn't matter why they were there. It didn't matter what they were supposed to do there. All that mattered was the fact that they were there, and not in some nice clean hospitable piece of Germany untainted by the foul reputation associated with Grafenwohr. Even when a group of soldiers came by and shoved another brown plastic MRE combat ration into Cole's hand, she didn't react, though she felt like it. At that moment, she felt like sinking onto the ground and crying. It wasn't fair that they were being treated like that. This was not what she was trained to do. Cole could deal with the pain and suffering of others. She could watch and assist in a very detached manner as doctors pieced torn bodies back together. She could even handle the frustration of doing everything within her power to save a life and then watching that life slip away. All of that was manageable, reasonable, and expected. This, however, was beyond comprehension. Even worse than the horror before her eyes was the sudden realization that there was no discernible end. There was no well-defined conclusion to which they were headed. This terrible endless chain of suffering and wandering had to be endured without any chance of really influencing it in any way, no way of stopping it. That to Cole was the horror of it all.
Just when she was about to break, to give in to her desire to break down and cry, Hilary noticed that someone had beaten her to it. In the darkness she heard her friend Wendi. Looking about, Hilary could see her standing off from the group alone in the darkness clutching her arms tightly across her chest as she rocked from side to side and cried. Though her own pain and frustration were still with her, Cole handed her ration to another nurse standing next to her and went to Wendi. Wrapping her arms about Wendi, Hilary Cole gently pushed Wendi's head down onto her shoulder. Reaching up under Wendi's helmet, Hilary slowly began to stroke her friend's hair. As Wendi cried, Hilary softly repeated through her own sobs, 'It's going to be all right, Wendi. It's all going to be all right. I'm here.'
Under normal circumstances, Big Al Malin didn't like to bother his subordinate commanders when they were getting ready to start a major operation. He made sure that he had good people working for him and that he issued clear concise orders and directives. 'The rest,' he liked to tell people, 'was in their hands and God's.' This operation, now referred to as Malin's March to the Sea, was not a normal operation. Though it was planned and briefed to everyone in the same manner as a purely military operation, it was not. The intricate civil-military relationships that were woven into the entire fabric of the operation and designed to prevent or defuse problems between the Tenth Corps and the German populace that they would be moving through touched every aspect of the operation, both planned and potential.
Some commanders voiced strong reservations about the rules of engagement imposed by Big Al. The commander of the 55th Mechanized Infantry Division had on several occasions pushed Big Al to soften his order restricting the use of artillery fire to only confirmed enemy locations that were a danger to the command. Every chance he got, Big Al would remind his commanders that 'We, an army used to the indiscriminate use of firepower, must look twice and three times before we pull the trigger. Otherwise we're going to leave in our wake a hostile populace that will cut our combat service support units to ribbons and deny us the use of their fuel and resources that the success of this operation depends upon. It is totally unreasonable to expect us to ask a German mother or father to allow us free and unhindered progress after we've blown up their home and killed their children. If you can't picture that, then just ask yourself before you make a call for fire,
It was the need to stress such things that drove him to visit every command he could before they jumped off, and to talk to every officer and soldier in a position of leadership. In his own mind he wanted to ensure that he had done his best to convey his intent and that it was understood. Standing there that night in front of the commanders of Scott Dixon's brigade, Big Al went over what he intended to do and how they would do it. The formal review of the brigade's plan, given by Dixon himself, was Dixon's own effort to ensure that every battalion and company commander in his brigade understood what he intended. When he was finished, he turned the floor over to Big Al.
Slowly Big Al rose from his chair and walked over to the map showing most of Germany and the anticipated route of the 4th Armored Division. He made a show of studying it before slowly turning to face the captains, majors, and colonels seated before him. With his feet spread shoulder width apart, his left hand on his hip, and using his right index finger to point at the map, Big Al began. 'It is 709 kilometers from here to Bremerhaven. That, for those of you still used to thinking like civilians, translates to 432 miles. In the States, it would almost be the same as driving from New York City to Cleveland, Ohio. During that trip the biggest threats you face are the Pennsylvania State Police. On a good day you could make that drive in eight or nine hours.
Turning around quickly, Big Al stared at the assembled leaders. 'To the Germans, a people who have a deep and long sense of history, we are simply another marauding army ripping up their fields, threatening their homes, and endangering their lives. They don't give a damn whether or not we are right or why we are doing what we're doing. We're just another group of soldiers passing through.' Toning his speech down slightly, Big Al folded his arms across his chest. 'Now, we have some advantages. First, because the American Army has lived with the Germans for more than fifty years, they know us and understand us better than just about everyone else that has gone before. The area of operations we'll be rolling through is used to seeing American GIs and dealing with us. So for many of those people this will be nothing new. Many of the procedures we will be using, from the recording of maneuver damage to the purchase of fuel from the civilian sector, are the exact same ones we used during peacetime training maneuvers. We're doing that because we have a reputation for paying in full all of our debts and doing as little damage as possible. I am hoping that reputation will allay any fears the civilians have and keep them from interfering with our operations.'
Using his index finger, Big Al raised his voice as he jabbed his finger at his officers to emphasize his point. 'That reputation, however, can be pissed away in a heartbeat if you and your people go through Germany like a plague of locusts or riding high and wild like Attila the Hun. Right now the media and the German people are neutral. I expect each and every one of you to do your best to keep it that way. We'll have more than enough to deal with when the German Army and Air Force get their acts together without having angry civilians chasing us with shotguns and pitchforks.'
Allowing that point to sink in, Big Al wandered about the front of the room, folding his arms across his chest, then, when he was ready, stopping. Placing his hands on his hips again, he turned only partway to face his
