The American Offensive

A short story I first wrote for an American literature course in college, meant to mirror the style of Ernest Hemingway's collection "In Our Time."

Chapter XIV

The women cried when we got back from Europe. They said they missed us, but we couldn’t hear them. Our minds were still in Cantigny, Marne and Argonne. Jimmy’s mother and father held him so tightly it made me wish my folks had been there. Mom died from cancer after I left and dad drank himself to death in the old home across from the reservation. The scene at the dock reminded me of when we got to Paris and the women yelled and threw flowers. I will never forget the women in France. Mrs. Gaven was there in the crowd after we got off the boat. Her oldest son was shot twice in the back and died in a hospital in Rouen.

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The American Offensive

The soldiers hardly spoke after the fighting ended in Belleau Wood. For 25 days, they fought off five German divisions in the thick forest. Nearly two thousand had died. The ones who made it were numb from the sound of bullets hitting the trees and the bodies of their friends now scattered in makeshift graves beneath the ravaged oaks.

The newspapers commended the 5th Marines for clearing the forest, and Major Mark Johnson told a few of the soldiers outside Jim Harris’s tent that they should be proud of what they’d done.

“You’ve earned your trip home, boys,” Johnson said. “You made your country proud here.”

Harris, who was 24 years old, stared at his boots while Johnson spoke. He’d been stabbed in the left shoulder by a bayonet and was wrapped in bandages. In the forest, he had killed more Germans than anyone. He came so close to them that when he closed his eyes he could still make out their faces.

“Look at your brothers beside you,” Johnson continued, “and know you wouldn’t be here without them.”