by Harold Loch ...
"For me it was strange having a rifle, I had never had a gun before never the less fired one. Most of the other guys had, but within a couple of weeks I got very good with it. I could hit a target the size of a man every time, two hundred yards away.
The bayonet was something else, putting it in someone or cutting someone was hard for me to think about. But I learned and I learned well not knowing that later in Korea I would have to use this knowledge to save my own life. God forgive me."
"It was October 1941, I was in the fourth grade and I remember going to school and seeing this girl, her name was Janice. I didn't know what it was ... but I knew some day I was going to get married and I knew Janice was the girl I would marry.
I know now that was not the Janice I was going to marry. It wasn't until 1957 that I met the girl I was going to marry. For many years now I have known that the day in October 1941, that I heard the name Janice, was the day she (my Janice) was born and the name was told to me by God and she would be my ETERNAL LOVE."
"As I sit here thinking back about my younger days, starting school and my friends, I remember those first few years as happy ones.
"As I waited in the cold wet rain, with all the others, the loneliness set in again. But I thought of Janice. It seemed so strange I could not see her face, only the outline of her tall body and her dark hair. But the Janice I knew during school years was short and had blond hair. That was the first time I began to wonder about the Janice I knew I was going to marry."
"Once inside he turned on his flashlight. The house was bare except for a few mats on the floor. In the corner was a pail and some candles. He lit the candles pointed to the pail and told me if I had to go to the toilet that was it."
"The blade on the knife was four inches long, came to a sharp point and was razor sharp on both sides. He then explained to me which points on the body it was to be used in for fast, silent kills and which points to gain information before the kill."
"We talked about how I would be contacted in the future about my assignments, that I would not know any of these people and ... they would discuss the assignment with me and then any pictures or written material would be destroyed before they left."
"Then he told me what I already knew, even though I had never talked about it with the sergeant or the captain, that if I was caught I was to kill lmyself ... when I got my first assignment I would be given something to do this with."
"... a sergeant took me aside, checked my ID and then handed me a holster and a forty-five. He told me this was mine and that the serial number would not be recorded on my paperwork ..."
"Here I was twenty-one years old, never any violence in my life, sitting in the middle of a war and trained to do something I thought never happened ... They trained me and trained me well and I knew I was going to get through it."
"War is terrible and I have to ask myself many times why people must go through this, nothing but death and distruction. Home seemed so far away and such a wonderful place. God only knows how I longed to be there."
"The shack was one room, it was made of wood and dirt. There were a couple of openings that were windows but no glass. There was no door just the opening. As I looked through one of the small windows I could see the three men sitting in the middle of the dirt floor, they had several candles. They were my assignments."
"I tried for years to forget what I did but I can't, the faces never go away. I thought maybe I shouldn't write anymore, that all of this must not be told but then I realized people had to know just how terrible war can be. When you take someones life, it doesn't matter even if it's in war, that life is gone and part of yours is too. You carry that person with you for the rest of your life. His face is always there, you think of the life he might have had, the joys and pleasures you took from him and no matter how hard you try, you cannot put it out of your mind."
"I tried to tell myself that if the Army said this had to be done that there was a good reason for it, to save lives, but how do you tell yourself that was right when all your life you have been taught it was wrong to kill! I laid there for what seemed like days, then I heard a noise outside, this brought me back to my senses."
"I opened the door and there stood a man I didn't know, in a uniform with no rank on it. He asked to come in, once inside he gave me the code letters. All I could think of was 'God not again, already'. We sat down, he looked at me and said "relax, I just came here to see how you are doing."
"That night I remember I saw the outline of Janice again. That was the first time in a long time and I slept without the terrible dreams of what had happened."
"I put my hand on my forty-five as the door opened. It was another man in a uniform, he was a colonel and had medical insignias. He was a doctor alright, a psychiatrist. That's all I needed, a head doctor to try to fool."
"I tried to write to Janice but after several hours and about a half page I knew that was wrong. That Janice was not the Janice I wanted to write to, but it was the only Janice I knew. I finally gave up and threw the half page away."
"Eternal Love Excerpts" graphic may not be reproduced without written permission of the artist. Copyright © Woody Hansen 1997-1999
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