Maria, Pull the Trigger and Kill (a World War II adventure)

SERE

At the turn of the year 1943/44, temperatures dropped below freezing in Iowa. It was too cold for a Mexican woman and I had to wear several layers of cloths to prevent my boody from contracting permanent goose bumps. Long underwear, and two undershirts did the job, but the worst part were my toes. One pair of socks was all that fit into the boots and I was even wearing 2 pairs at night in bed. When we were outside, my toes always felt cold and the only way to prevent them from first degree frostbites was to keep my feet moving. Keep them moving all the time and it was exhausting. When we had to stand in line, I had to move my toes back and forth in my shoes and when we were standing around burning time, which happens too often in the military, I was rocking up and down with my lower legs. Outcome was, that I got painful cramps in them at night. Heavy snowfall set in in January 1944. Every basic army training, has to include a survival and evasion exercise = SERE. Now, the bastards of drillmasters could have set it up in early December already, but no, they had to set it up in January, after all of Iowa had gotten covered in a thick layer of snow. We had received a packing list for our Haversacks. That piece was heavy with all that stuff in it. Before we took off, the trainers randomly checked if we really had everything. What I had to painfully learn during this SERE: our M-1928 Haversacks were loaded with stuff we did not need and lacked stuff we would have really needed. So the cutlery and the field crockery, socks, toiletry, water bottle, shirt, underwear, pouch and a spade had to get packed. The assembly process of the Haversack was a nightmare in itself. The Haversack consisted out of several pieces. Strings and hocks had to get fiddled through a gazillion holes so to hold all the blasted pieces together. Why could they not just give us a simple backpack? Making matters worse, packing the Haversack was bloody complicated. If you did not do it right, everything fell out. The guy who had invented them must have had a psycho fidgeting and tinkering condition.

Lucky us women, we did not have to carry rifles and bayonets. So by trucks we got transported somewhere into the boonies and ten of us got dropped off in one spot. One of us received a compass and instructions and another one had to copy a map with a pencil and a shaggy piece of paper. Then the trucks drove off and we were on our own. Young, beautiful, innocent chicks, left to their own devices, somewhere in the woods of Iowa. It had to go wrong. Apparently, we had to find some stupid tent in the middle of nowhere, where we would get further instructions. The one of us, who had gotten the compass, was the first to lead. She used the compass to figure out the direct direction to the tent and started to walk into the snow. The poor girl, had to trample the snow down for all of us and after a mile, she was finished. Another one took the lead and after another mile, she was finished, too. One suggested, to deviate from the direct route and use country roads or highways if possible, but the stupid girl who had drawn the map, had done a very shaggy job and there were no roads in her map. Well, she was not so stupid, but she had no experience with this and our training had not been very thorough either. What I learned later in flight school: when you copy a map, take your bloody time and do a very, very thorough job or you will fucking regret it.

A third one took over and paved the way for another mile until she too was finished. The fourth one took over and she led us into a forest. There was less snow, which made walking a lot easier, but navigating between all the branches was much harder. An hour later, it was clear, she had no idea, where we were? Without much of a clue, she carried on until we came to a section of the forest, where there were no trees for about 6 yards. It was like an uneven cut through the forest. That stretch/cut was covered with snow. I should have been wary about it, but I had not. I, like everybody else, had been exhausted. None of us paid enough attention. The leader made a couple of steps into the cut and then she vanished. The ground had swallowed her up. Well, not entirely, but she was in the snow up to her waistline. Two comrades stepped next to her in order to help her out and vanished as well. So now, we had three, young, beautiful women standing in the snow up to their waistline. The leader yelled: "This is a fucking creek and it's fucking cold. Pull me out!" So this had been a creek, frozen on the surface and then covered with a thick layer of snow. While the rest of us were trying to figure out how we could pull the three out without getting swallowed up as well, the three had already managed to work their way back onto solid ground. OK, now we could continue, but where to? We waited for the current leader to make a decision, but she just started to whine, that her legs were so cold and that her feet were frozen. Apparently, the three who had gotten swallowed up, were wet up to their knees. Shoes wet, socks wet and trousers wet, wet from ice-cold water. One suddenly stated: "This is all a fucking bullshit. We have to go back and hit the road on which we had come from." Now, a fruitless debate started. Some refused to go back at all. Others argued that we still would not know where to go, after we had reached our starting point. I just knew, that my fine Mexican boody was getting cold by standing around. Another one must have felt the same and she stated: "I'm going back, this is no good." I followed and the one who had the idea to go back in the first place followed as well. It took the remaining women a couple of seconds, until they followed suit. However, we were not even out of the forest, when one from the back commanded us to stop. All three, who had stepped into the creek were on the ground and had removed their shoes and socks. Their feet were dark red, about to turn blue. While the three were whining about their feet, I removed my Haversack and got my shirt out. I wrapped it around the two feet of one and started to rub. She complained that it hurt, but I told her she would soon have first degree frostbites, unless we warmed her feet. The other two were treated the same way by other comrades. A couple of minutes later, the feet of the three were Ok again, but they could not put their shoes back on. These shoes were already frozen, not even wet anymore. Making a fire and trying to dry those shoes would have come in real handy now, but apparently, the packing list did not include a Zippo and kindling. One of us had the only idea, which did get us out of the predicament. We had to rotate the wet shoes and socks. So three of us wore the wet shoes and socks for five minutes then another three and so forth. What sounds easy, is not easy at all. First, you have to find women with roughly the same shoe size. Second, changing shoes in the snow without filling them with snow in the process is not an easy task. Third, it was very hygienic to slip into another woman's stinky boots and wet, tinea infested socks. Making matters worse, these wet socks turned slimy when they dried. Fourth, those cold boots, could not be worn for much longer than 5 minutes, because one's feet got painfully cold. After 5 and a half hours, we were back, where we had started and we were all exhausted and we were hungry. A real smart ass must have put that packing list together, because we had cutlery and crockery, but no food. I would have paid $1 for a dry piece of bread, but instead, I had a useless, empty field crockery in the Haversack. Demotivated, some of us put the Haversack on the ground and laid on top of it and it did not take long and we all followed the example. 10 minutes later and everyone of us was butt freezing cold. We had to get going again and so we followed the road on which the truck had brought us. The road had gotten cleared of snow and was much easier to ply. For ten long miles, we followed that road until we came to a T-intersection. At that time, we were fucking wasted and the sun was about to set. Should we go left or right? None of us had an idea. Truck tracks in the snow were moving either way. Some started to debate again, while others including me laid onto their Haversacks again. Meanwhile it had gotten entirely dark and I fell asleep.