Rusty Saber: Unpublished WWII memoirs compelling

Should I be asked if I've read any good books lately, I'll say that I've read two wonderful unpublished books, written by the same author during World War II. The two are accounts by Springfield artist Bill Wright of his combat experiences during the war. My wife believes they should be required reading for school children so they can understand what duty to country is all about.

One book titled "Letters From a Soldier" consists of 146 letters Wright wrote to his parents in Kansas City. He said he was unaware that his mother had saved them until after her death when he found them neatly filed in the order received. Bill's wife, Marilyn Wright, had the daunting task of typing the letters that were written on whatever paper was available as his combat unit (100th "Century" Division, 397th Infantry Regiment, M Company) sloughed its way across France and Germany.

Beginning with a letter dated May 26, 1943, from Fort Leavenworth, Kan. where he awaited a pre-induction physical, the letters offer a bird's eye view of basic training, the voyage overseas, the rigors of combat, the war's end and postwar duties. The last letter ends with a telegram from Camp Kilmer, N.J., announcing that he was back in the United States.

The true nature of war is vividly portrayed, however, he never wrote anything in the letters that even hinted at the dangers faced by him and his unit. The letters captured the emotional responses to war.

The tedium, physical discomfort and dangers of close combat, and how fighting men endure it can be found in the journal Wright kept once his unit arrived in France. It is titled "Number One Man" and also was turned into manuscript form by Marilyn Wright. "Number One Man" is the designation given to the first gunner in a mortar squad, which was his job. The letters in concert with the journal present in proper context the horrors of war and the emotional responses to it. There is no effort to romanticize combat in these writings nor does he lay claim to being a hero.

The day-to-day tedium of training for war and fighting came through the voice of one soldier. At first, the rigors of basic training seemed unduly harsh until the actual conditions of combat emerged. Severe training prepared soldiers for what was to come.

A steady diet of K-rations, a food most of us wouldn't eat if we were starving, seemingly endless rain and snow, scrounging up paper and envelopes to write and mail letters or to write journal entries were among the quandaries of Wright's daily life in wet foxholes. While struggling to survive the cold, rain and snow, there was combat. The journal describes the escalation of combat as the unit moved across France. The threat of death is a constant companion of a combat soldier; the journal describes the deaths of friends. The most compelling is the account of the death of the unit's captain, described as "a peach of a guy," in a battle he believed to have been unnecessary.

Like so many others, Wright put his young life on hold to answer the nation's call. On his 22nd birthday, he celebrated by exchanging haircuts with a buddy. There is no mention of combat, rain or snow on that day, a happy birthday gift, indeed.

On Thanksgiving Day, his first away from home, he wrote in the journal: "You might think I haven't much to be thankful for sitting here in a wet, cold barn in Sommes, France with pouring down rain as usual, wearing the same dirty clothes that I have been wearing for three weeks, not having taken a bath in over a month, not to mention my beard and teeth, but to the contrary, I have more to be thankful this Thanksgiving than I have ever had."

Among things to give thanks for that year included being alive after a particularly harsh German siege; he enjoyed good health despite a diet of K-Rations and sleeping in wet foxholes; his family didn't have to suffer from the war as did the French people; and the Germans were on the run, so the war would soon be over.

Bill Wright would be the very last person to claim hero status. After reading his remembrances, I claim it for him. Like so many others, he was a hero who stepped up to the plate when his country needed him the most.

Have I read any good books lately? Yes, indeed!

(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University and a Springfield public relations consultant.)