My Life with PTSD As Told to Dr. Freud (Part Two)

Thank you, thank you so much, Doctor for seeing me again! I'm so sorry about not paying you last time, but your wife wouldn't take my MasterCard. She didn't know what it was.

MasterCard is modern day miracle, Doctor. It's a scientific wonder. But I brought dollars this time. They are as good as Deutsche Marks. I promise!

But back to my story.

As we were heading to Boston in the troopship we were told we each would get a 30 day leave at home before regrouping at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, for "jungle training" before heading for the Far East for the invasion that would make Normandy look like child's play. Japan had pledged to defend its country to the death of every man woman and child.

You know what sublimation is, Doctor. I sublimated, big time, all the way home on the train ride from Beantown to Cleveland, as I prepared for my grand entrance back home as a hero.

In Cleveland, you come into the terminal under ground, not like in Europe, Doctor.

So there I was, trudging up those steps (that was before escalators) to the grand hall, one of the grandest terminals in America, with my duffle bag on my shoulder and battle stars and an air medal on my chest. It was the hero's welcome I had envisioned.

My mother was in tears. She rarely cried. Little did she or the rest of them know that I was carrying a lot more baggage than that heavy duffle, but more on that later.

This was a time for joy and celebration. We were among the first back from Europe. When I walked down the street, people saluted. Honest. And sometimes I saluted back. I had been faithful to my girlfriend Rita Barnet, a sweet high school senior who would graduate Heights High in the spring. One of the high points was the day she took me to school to show off to her classmates. (They looked like children to me, Doctor after my year and a half away. And I, of course, was a man! A hero, a warrior.)

At the beginning of our 30 day leave, I hooked up with my friend Lawrence Siegel, a neighbor in Cleveland Heights. He had been assigned to the 104th division which took the brunt of the surprise Nazi attack in the Battle of the Bulge. What was left of the division was pretty much decimated and sent back to the States. He didn't talk about it much. I didn't push. He was one of few survivors of his unit.

So Larry and I did the last dance in Cleveland, you might call it. We took our girlfriends out early, dropping them off about eleven, then headed downtown. It was pretty lively in those days. Nothing much was said about Japan but I felt it, Doctor. It had a doom-like quality finding a special home in my brain... get it Doc?

Baggage…doom…BRAIN…PTSD.

At the end of our month I was shipped down to Mississippi, and Larry went to a military hospital for rehab, whatever that meant in those days.

My trip took me first to Camp Atterbury near Indianapolis for a few days for reassignment work. By some huge coincidence I ran into my first cousin Malcolm Krohngold, who had spent several years in Australia, and was also ticketed for Japan.

On the second day in Indiana I picked up a copy of the lndianapolis Star. It had this huge headline: TRUMAN SAYS WE DROPPED AN AUTOMATIC BOMB ON JAPAN.

OMG I said to myself and then to Malcolm, “What the hell is an automatic bomb!?”
"You're reading it wrong. It's atomic bomb." my cousin said.

I didn't know what the hell it was except it was another weapon to scare and kill a lot of people. We had already carpet bombed Tokyo, killing two hundred thousand human beings in one night...what could be worse?

Little did I know.

There was a lot of talk and speculation, but nothing for certain. As we climbed aboard I the train I noticed something unusual. There were no Negro* troops in our car. They were all sent to the back of the train, to the last two cars.

I wondered why, but I didn't think much more about it. There were no Negroes in my division. Didn't see many in combat. They were mostly in quartermaster units. Maybe that’s why. I’d known of two at Heights High. Both smart. The son and daughter of the custodian of the apartment next door, I remembered.

As we moved along the tracks heading south, we crossed into Kentucky at Cincinnati and into another world, where I was to learn a lot about the disgusting treatment of Negroes in the American south.

Hattiesburg, here I come, where we would prepare for the landing on the southern island of Japan. As the train pulled into to the station I was stunned. I hadn't seen any like this before. Over the entrance to the station there were large signs over two separate doors. One sign said "White," and the other, “Colored”.

Welcome to the land of Dixie, I thought to myself. Aren't we all fighting the same war?!

I turned to Dr. Freud.
“Does this remind you of those signs in the stores and houses in Germany? Big stars of David and the word JUDEN?”

I had seen some in Dortmund.

“Ya, ya,” he said quietly, barely showing emotion.

“Remember to take your Valium, son. See you in two weeks.”

I swallowed hard, gave him the money and turned away. I wonder how long he will put up with me, I said to myself as I turned and walked out down the narrow staircase and out the door...

(to be continued)

* In this essay African Americans are referred to as "Negroes," as this latter terminology is what was used at the time. Usage here is meant to reflect the language of the period and is not intended to be derogatory or disrespectful.

My Life With PTSD As Told to Dr. Freud (Part Three)

"It's over Doctor, it's over," I gleefully announced as I marched into Dr. Freud's office for my appointment, not even taking time to close the door.

Ah, you're feeling better, son.

No sir, it's not my PTSD. Not the election. It's the war.

Grab a pencil and paper so I can finish the story. You remember how the Japs* suffered after we dropped the first bomb? But the Emperor wouldn't give up.

It turns out we hadn't burned and mutilated enough bodies with the first bomb, so we did it again on another city, probably bigger than Cleveland. Tens of thousands of civilians were horribly destroyed by fire, radiation and explosion.

Remember, Doctor. And the Japs and their Emperor had had enough.

We celebrated. Can you imagine that? We celebrated the end of the war.

We celebrated the bomb.

And all that death.

Truth is, Doctor, we really celebrated because we wouldn't have to die on the beaches of Japan's southern island.

I felt a joyful, self-serving pleasure of the moment. No one, not I nor anyone else, stopped to think about what we had done. The Bomb, the Doomsday bomb, had saved our lives, but created the monstrous weapon that would haunt the world for the rest of our lives. I felt guilt inside the joy.

Joy and guilt. Is that a hint, Doc? Joy and guilt. PTSD?

But there was another hitch, Doctor. Remember in life there always a hitch. This time it was Wikileaks again, telling us that our division, the heroic victors of Metz, were to be re-trained to go to Japan for another perhaps three year stint as the Army of occupation.

"They've got to be kidding," I told Capt. Compton, our company commander, an intelligent guy, a teacher in real life. 

“We've gone though hell and now they want to make us glorified MP’s. Keep us away from home for two or three more years. Good God, haven't we done enough?” attempting to appeal to his spiritual side.

“And,” I added, perhaps thoughtlessly, “I promised my girlfriend I would be home by Christmas.”

He showed no emotion and stared at me.

“You're in the Army, Private Weidenthal. We follow orders here. No romantic bullshit about Christmas and girl friends.”

He must have wondered why a nice Jewish boy like me was so into Christmas.

I had fallen back into depression, Doctor. Orders were orders, and that was that.

But there a few guys in our unit, officers and enlisted men, who were sure that we could turn it around. We would take our appeal to the nation. A 1945 version of a media blitz.

Take the Victory Division out of the army of occupation. We've done enough. Huge casualties. Six months straight of combat without a day of rest. The Bulge. Haven't we done enough!? That would be our theme.

We sent letters to President Truman and his wife Bess at the White House who we thought might be sympathetic and influence the president. We wrote to our senators and representatives, to General Marshall, our military commander in chief. Then we turned our public relations blitz on the media: Walter Winchell, Pearson and Allen, who happened to be broadcasting from nearby New Orleans (we went to their studio while they were broadcasting).

We wrote to The News Orleans Times Picayune and sent letters to our hometown newspapers.

It was an all out assault to get the good guys on our side.

And we waited and waited.

Meantime we moved forward with MP training, learning Japanese customs and language lessons.

There was a lot free time. We spent weekends in the French Quarter on Bourbon Street. It made Soho in London look like Sunday School, Doctor.

But I remained a virgin, doctor and I was proud of that. At 19 I remained pure, Doctor. That's good Doctor, right? I did the right thing? I stayed pure. I know you have some unusual ideas about sex. Would I have been better off exercising my manhood?

Silence. A nod. Nothing more.

One day in late October while were out taking lessons on how to bow and shake hands Japanese style, the word came down. General Marshall had decided that the 95th division should be disbanded, and its members honorably discharged and sent home.

I was ecstatic. I would see Rita by Christmas. My mother would be so happy.

As I headed north to Columbus for official discharge, I had some lingering thoughts about all the uncivilized inhuman restrictions on people of color AND HOW UGLY IT SEEMED. But my thoughts slipped back to Rita and four years of college ahead, and later a career as a journalist.

I did my bit and I felt proud.

No time to be a reformer.

But it wasn't as easy as it might seem, Doctor. There was trouble looming ahead.

Unexpected trouble, Doctor.

"Ya,” he said, "in two weeks. "

(To be continued.) Next: From Warrior to Wolverine and the Worry Bird

*In this essay "Japs" reflects wartime rhetoric of the time. Usage here is meant to reflect the language of the period and no disrespect or offense to contemporary readers is intended.

My Life As a Hero

This headline says...My Life as a Hero!

Wait a minute. Hold on, guys.

Who wrote that headline?

I'm no hero. Never have been. Never really wanted to be.

How did that word get up there?

Well, it turns out that there is a germ of truth here. I have been reading about this utterly remarkable woman who was born in Africa. I was wandering through her aerial exploits in her single engine monoplane over unsettled unfriendly countryside, taking off and landing on rough, uncharted landing strips, and my mind led me back to another continent, to another time, indeed another century.

It was late Fall 1944, in Europe. There was this moment in the war when I might have had a brush with the heroic...didn't seem so at the time.

We were in this historic battle for that fortress city of Metz, right on

the French-German border, a bastion that had never been captured by

enemy warriors throughout history, and here we were: fighting the Germans who had holed up in the forts of the Maginot Line. (Built by the French, but captured by the Germans during the Blitzkreig.)

Two companies in our 95th division, were attempting an end-around

attack, devised by our bombastic regimental commander, Col. Bacon, a Patton protégé. (come to think of it, he now reminds me of Donald Trump)

By U.S. Signal Corps [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Well the maneuver didn't work, and two companies were trapped on the

other side of the Maginot fortress, running out of food and ammunition and in

desperate need of first aid materials for their wounded comrades.

In the midst of all this mayhem, Captain Compton, our company

commander a decent human being, a high school gym teach from South

Carolina, called me to his quarters.

“Weedenthal,” (he incessantly called me Weedenthal)

“Weedenthal, you ever flown in a plane?”

“No sir, never flown in a plane.”

“Well here's your chance. Show up tomorrow after breakfast. We need you to help in a rescue mission. We picked you and Corporal Spinelli to volunteer for the mission. You're small. You'll fit in the space behind the pilot."

So he had volunteered.  Maybe that explains the “hero” word.

"Hold the headline guys. Maybe we can still use it!”

The next morning, after very little sleep, I showed up and we got in a couple

of jeeps. They took Corporal Spinelli, a little cook from Chicago, and me to a

sprawling cow pasture. It was very uncharted; very uneven. In the distance four

Piper Cubs...looking old and fragile, not unlike the plane that our African

queen had been flying a few chapters back. They we actually artillery

spotter planes connected to the battalion of cannons supporting us. In the

Army they were called L-4's

Well Spinelli, and I and two little guys from another unit, looking as

confused as we were, stumbled across the pasture and we each climbed

aboard our plane.

"Private Weidenthal, climb board aboard." said the pilot. (I was pleased

that he, at least, had pronounced the name properly.)

“There is a box back there you can sit on. We'll put the boxes of supplies and your lap.”

So there I was, cramped in the space behind the pilot, sitting on a box

with three boxes on my lap, and we were ready to take off.

This was not Cleveland Hopkins. It was a cow pasture.

I cannot accurately describe how I felt at the moment the plane started

moving.  No stewardess, no seat belts. As I told my mother in a letter later,

it was "like living history in a movie".

I didn't tell her this: Getting off the ground was harrowing. Worse than

driving through a rutted parking lot in our 38 Plymouth.

From the air we could see a battle ground painted by years of

history. Cults, tribes, nations had fought over this land. It was surreal.

Directly below was the Maginot Line. This was not a sightseeing trip for

Senior scholars. This was war, live.

No sign of the enemy, and down the hill were the remnants of the two stranded companies.

Our guys were waving at us madly. We dropped down to maybe 50 feet

and the pilot dipped his wing.

“Okay Weidenthal, open the door!" he shouted above the din of the engine.

In no time I had thrown out all three boxes. The guys waved. I closed the

door and I said to myself, “Thank God this a round trip.”

We swung around, picked up speed and flew back over the forts at a

higher altitude. By that time the Germans figured out what was going on

and were firing at us. Thankfully, we were too high.

We made three round trips, as did the other planes, without casualties

except for a hole in the wing of one of the other Pipers.

A couple of months later, as I recall, I was called to Capt. Compton's

Quarters. There he was again.

"Weedenthal, l want you to show up tomorrow morning."

“Oh my God not another rescue mission,” I thought to myself.

The next day all eight of the four little non-coms and the four pilots were

lined up on the field and a General from the Third Army decorated each of

us with an Air Medal for valor.

And for that moment I felt like a hero.

The rest is history.