When the shells went silent, Paul lit a cigarette against the tremble in his hands. He thought briefly of his family back in Tulsa, Ma, Pa, Dooly, Little Pete, Big Doug and Fat Sherri, wondered what they were doing, if they were thinking of him. This time last year, he was the star left end of Tulsa Senior High. Now, he was dirty, cold and scared, an 18-year-old kid in a new and frightening world. But, accepting his duty and his fate maybe, he gritted his teeth and went over the top to launch a grenade at the German line.
The explosion shook the ground and he hunkered back down into the dugout as chunks of earth rained from the blackening sky. As what remained of the sun began to set, and after a lull in the chattering of rifles, he took out a letter he’d gotten from his sweetheart. “Dearest Paul,” it said--and then gunfire from a lingering Mauser rifle. “Jerry son of a bitch!” Paul grunted, and reached for his sidearm. And then, “Ow, papercut! Ow, ow, ow!”
Later that night, Paul stopped crying. Then America won the war.
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