Apo #2

By Orlando Ramírez

The story of Sergeant Roberto Linderos is a prime example of the Mexican Americans that fought and died for our country in WWII and their struggle to be treated equally. Originally from humble beginnings, the author tells of the prejudice he encounters during a world conflict, where equality is only truly found on the battlefield, where everyones life is at stake.
What motivated Mexican American soldiers to fight for their country, even though they were treated as second-class citizens, could only be described and understood through the experiences shared in this book.
Letters addressed to and from remote regions of the world known as V-mail or APO (Army Post Office) assured families their loved ones were still alive. On the other hand, a letter from home was a soldiers only means of communication to the outside world and was the greatest motivator and a delight to receive.
These APO letters not only kept the soldiers spirits up but were their only link to sanity during the constant violence of a maddening war. Without the morale these letters provided, the war could not have been won.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514403334

Orlando Ramírez

Orlando Ramírez (1919-2011) was born at the Palo Blanco Ranch in Zapata County. He was the son of Abraham and Sara Ramírez and lived in Hebbronville, Texas. Orlando attended El Colegio Altamirano and graduated third in his class from Hebbronville High School. In 1940 he enlisted in the Army and joined the 37th Field Artillery Battalion attached to the 23rd Infantry under the branch of the 2nd Infantry Division known as the Indian Head. As Corporal and gunner, he participated on D-Day +1 and 24 Battles including the Battle of the Bulge. His Army service was from November 1940 to October 1945. He earned five Bronze Stars and many other awards. Before going overseas, Orlando married his sweetheart, Leonor López. He and Leonor had five children; Priscilla, Gloria, Leonor, Roberto, and David (all college graduates). Orlando worked as a clerk for the Post Office in his hometown. He also coached Little League from 1946-1970. Orlando was one of the founding members and post commander of the V.F.W. Post in his hometown.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Orlando Ramírez.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015914270

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-0335-8

                Softcover        978-1-5144-0334-1

                eBook             978-1-5144-0333-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/21/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

716224

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Bugle Calls

Chapter 2: Winter Warfare Training

Chapter 3: Moving Overseas

Chapter 4: Northern Ireland: A Walk in the Rain

Chapter 5: D-Day Plus One

Chapter 6: A Walk through the Norman Fields

Chapter 7: A Walk through the Hedgerows

Chapter 8: A Journey into Exile and Freedom

Chapter 9: A Visit to Brittany

Chapter 10: Festung Brest

Chapter 11: The Fortress Falls: A Stopping Place

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

author.jpg

To all

my comrades in war, my wife, parents and in-laws, my brothers and sisters, and all the friendly people I met during my five years in uniform at home and abroad. Life to me has always been a never-ending learning process. Every day, it seems I learn something new from relatives, friends, and perfect strangers. God has blessed me with fine sons, daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I love all of them, along with Leonor, my wife, my constant companion, and my dearest friend.

image001.jpg

2nd Indian Head Patch

Second Infantry Division

Motto: Second to None

PROLOGUE

T he main character in this story, Roberto Linderos, reflects the author’s military experience during WWII in Europe. These experiences, situations, and battles he fought are depicted throughout the story. Roberto Linderos was a young Mexican American born and raised in a post-Depression and economically challenged small town in South Texas. He grew up in a home of devout Christians and attended Mass regularly. After graduating from high school and not being able to find a job, he was the first to enlist in the US Army. Once, when asked why he joined the army, his response was Because of the pancakes, a reference to his impoverished life, where the family quite often went without eating meals. Sergeant Linderos’s training, battles he endured, and comrades are the focal point of this story. It begins with basic training in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, on to Ireland and then landing in Normandy on D-day plus one. The story concludes with the American occupation of B rest.

Gloria Ramírez Swidriski

image002.jpg

Orlando marching with rifle

CHAPTER ONE

The Bugle Calls

I n mid-November 1940, I joined the army at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. I told my friends that I had volunteered because I was afraid that if I waited to be drafted, the war would be over by then, and I also wanted to see Eu rope.

We should be so lucky, my cousin Homer had replied. Betcha when they draft me, they’ll send me off to the islands where the only things to see are coconuts and palm trees.

As for me, I had added jokingly, I’d love to tour Europe, see Paris in the spring, the Riviera, and go skiing in the Alps, the works.

If you do any touring, Homer had said then, it will be on the back of an army truck, and if you are unlucky enough to be in the infantry, you’ll walk your way through the continent.

The last weekend at home, Homer and I took Mary and Elena riding around town during the day on Sunday. Later we went home where my parents had prepared a farewell party for me. We enjoyed barbecued meat, beans with ham, cold drinks, and a few beers. Some of my friends were there, and Grandmother Olivia, Mom’s mother, was there too. We ate and talked about school days, about past ball games, and mostly about the war. We imagined how we would react if we were drawn into the volcano of war.

That evening, I took Mary to the movies, and afterward, we parked for a while at the edge of town.

Be sure to send me your army address when you write me, Mary had asked me. Then I’ll write to you as often as I can, which could be every day.

I’ll do that for sure, and I will also write to Mom, Dad, Gloria, and David, I had answered her.

I know you will look wonderful in uniform, Mary had said. Just don’t go around making eyes at any other girl you meet. Remember who loves you for always, she had finished saying, the tears streaming out of her brown eyes and down her pretty face, the emotion deepening her voice. I kissed her tenderly then, stroked her sweet-smelling hair, and vowed to love her for always.

And every chance I get, I’ll come down to see you, I had told her, clutching her nearer to me.

The sky had clouded, and rain threatened, so we started home. Taking her back, I parked Dad’s car about four blocks from her home, and we walked the rest of the way, my arm around her waist, with raindrops from a light shower falling on our heads and faces.

We did not mind the rain; we had the world then. Love does that to all of us, gives us that feeling that through it and because of it, all things can be had, all our wishes can come true. Through love, we come closer to fulfilling God’s purpose for us on earth.

Next day, a Monday, I took the bus to San Antonio and was met at the station by a regular army sergeant. There were eighteen more men around the bus station who had also come down for induction. We were all a little nervous and tense now that the time had come to say good-bye to civilian life. The sergeant gathered us in the waiting room of the station, where he checked off our names, and then we followed him outside to the street and a waiting army truck. Some of the men had brought suitcases with them; others, like me, only a small bag with shaving stuff and a change of underwear.

The truck made its way through the city traffic down East Houston Street then swung left onto New Braunfels, and soon after that, we passed the brick pillars marking the entrance to Fort Sam. The truck kept on going through the sprawling army post, past the huge barracks of the infantry regiments stationed at this post. To our left, on the immense parade ground, hundreds of soldiers could be seen engaged in calisthenics, others performing close order drill. So this is the army, I thought, and I could hardly wait to be part of it. The truck kept going north then turned eastward on a highway past the fort for about two miles until we came to the entrance of the training center named Dodd Field. Here we dismounted, and some NCOs from the camp greeted us and took us to our assigned companies.

Life in the army, I soon found out, was very different from our independent civilian way of life. Everything we did there was done as a group. There was no place for any individuality in the army. Also, everything we did was done by the numbers, whether it was calisthenics, drills, eating, or issuance of clothing. If it were possible, the army would very much like for us to relieve ourselves by the numbers also. We soon fell into the routine of getting up early—around five o’clock—falling out a little later for roll call, and going to chow and out to the field for drill. In between came visits to the barbershop for a very close GI haircut—our heads felt like sandpaper after the barber was through with us—to the dentist and to the infirmary for so many shots that our arms and buttocks ached and turned black and blue. Trips to the supply room for issuance of clothing were made regularly.

Out on the field we marched for hours at a time, relieved only by short rest periods. Marching up and down the field, we performed a close order drill, first squad to the rear march and second squad to the rear march, while our legs ached and our mouths thirsted for a drink under the hot Texas sun. Then we would fall out for ten minutes, drink from our canteens, listen to lectures on the nomenclature of our rifles, with each one of us getting his chance to strip down his rifle and assemble it back, on tarps spread out on the ground before us.

There were lectures on military courtesy, general orders, orientation, and hygiene. Even our chaplain came in for a lecture or two on the evils of sex indulgence, together with illustrations of the horrors that could befall a soldier’s body when not taking advantage of the facilities provided by the services in a prophylaxis station. Some of our men slept through these presentations, knowing our chaplain would not be too hard on them if found out.

The army was full of characters who supposedly knew what was wrong with the system and, if given the chance, would straighten it out. With some of these guys in the general staff, I thought, the war would be over in six months. Only nobody ever called them. The high brass seemed intent on ignoring the fountains of military wisdom gushing out at every Post Exchange (PX) and latrine in every camp in the United States.

There were the latrine lawyers also, who knew every facet of their rights and privileges under the Constitution as citizens and taxpayers. Only here, there are no privileges or rights to speak of. The drill instructor’s word is the law. The battalion’s sergeant major is the unapproachable dispenser of the coveted weekend passes. Woe to the unfortunate ones who incurred his displeasure: they would never see the outside of the camp for weeks and weeks.

There were also the old-timer noncoms—regular army, they called themselves—who talked incessantly of how things had been in the old days, how soldierly and efficiently the old army ran in those days, and how everything was now going to the dogs under the influx of us, the new recruits. It has been thus in every army since the beginning of time. Somewhere in Palestine, at the onset of our Christian era, some Roman centurion must have complained about the quality of the new men being assigned to this legion for the pacification of Judea. Some sergeant in Napoleon’s cavalry must have expressed his displeasure at the lack of military skills displayed by some new enlistee in the emperor’s service, just before Waterloo.

Two men from our company, Jones and Martínez, took off for San Antonio last weekend, without a pass, to enjoy a night of fun. They were caught by the MPs after curfew and, not having a pass between the two of them, were promptly taken to the downtown brig. Our drill sergeant had to go out, at 3:00 a.m., to bring them back to camp and then report them to the sergeant major. The sergeant major was furious. He had gone to bed well after midnight after drinking at the PX, and to be awakened at 4:00 a.m., with a skull-splitting headache on top of that, was the last straw. He lectured Jones and Martínez in unprintable language for half an hour or longer, threatened to send them to the brig for the duration and to bust them.

Only in this he was wrong, as Martínez later told us.

I wasn’t worried about being busted. How can you bust a buck-ass private any lower? he philosophized, and we agreed with him. Jones was also unimpressed of being sent to the brig.

I could never be so lucky as to be sent to the brig for the duration, he complained. Just working around a safe brig while you guys go off to war and have your balls shot off, it will never happen to me, he concluded, as if lamenting the fact that it wouldn’t come to pass. Both Martínez and Jones agreed that the punishment they finally got was worth the fun they had had downtown.

We were just getting to make time with these couple of waitresses when the damn MPs busted in and hauled us off, Jones lamented at chow the next morning.

I guess God acts in the best way for us every time, Martínez had added. I was down to my bus fare to camp when the MPs sounded ‘Lights-out’ for us.

Both of them had been marching around our barracks now, for four hours every evening after retreat, in full pack and rifle. On top of that, they had KP duty every weekend until we completed basic training.

It was now late January 1942, and our six weeks of basic training were just about over. Group photos of the company had been taken, and every one of us wanted to buy one to send home. Souvenirs of army life! Someday, some of us would be showing them to our grandchildren and saying, Take a look, son. This was the best company that ever passed through Dodd Field in World War II!

I paid for one to send home to Mom and Dad. Most of us were smiling in the picture while at the same time trying to appear soldierly. After all, six weeks in the army had already made us feel like veterans, and we went around camp after retreat, visiting the new arrivals that streamed daily into camp, imparting to them our newfound knowledge of soldiering. Some of the new arrivals were draftees, and some of them were married men with families. Most of them were over thirty years of age. These newcomers, I could tell, were mostly homesick and a little scared at finding themselves in such different environs. Some of them were from South Texas, and they were happy to find someone from close to home to talk to—as if by talking to me, they could somehow recapture their former way of life. Little did they know that I was in the same boat. I too wanted to talk to someone from back home, especially in Spanish. They showed us pictures of their wives and children, their sweethearts and talked about the jobs they held, as if it all had happened a very long time ago and not only a few weeks ago.

Some of our Mexican American draftees did not speak fluent English. Most had to drop out of school at an early age to work in the fields or elsewhere to survive. These poor souls had a tough time catching on and understanding the never-ending changes of orders the noncoms bellowed out throughout the day and night in English.

Fall out in ten minutes in ODs, the order was sounded and resounded through the barrack, and just about the time everybody was ready, a new one