Art Kramer

ART KRAMER'S WWII STORIES

I'm going to die today.

"I'm going to die today," he said. We had just left the briefing tent and Lt. Jones (not his real name) walked along with me. His comment came as a shock. "No you're not," I said. He shook his head in despair and choked out " I have a wife and a kid and I'm know I'm going to die today and the war is almost over. I'm not going to fly". I grabbed him by that arm hard. " Look, if you refuse to fly you'll go to Leavenworth for 20 years. Then what will you wife and kid do? Besides, today will probably be a milk run and you'll come back fine". I didn't quite believe it, but I said it anyway. Now one of the 6x6's that takes crews to the flight line pulled up. I pushed Jones toward it and boosted him in. He flew the mission. The mission wasn't quite a milk run but we had no losses and all came back fine. Jones never spoke to me again. Any time we met he would avoid eye contact. If I were in the officers club he would either leave or sit as far away as possible with his back to me. I guess he was just too embarrassed about what he revealed. That incident only took two or three minutes at the most. And I haven't thought about it since that day, until a recent incident brought it to mind. I was always glad that I could help him through a bad time. I wonder how Jones feels about that moment when he thinks about it today?

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