A group of GIs were hiking through a minefield. Their fresh-faced, brand-new-to-the-field 2nd lieutenant yelled at the top of his voice, “Get the hell off the damn railroad tracks! You wouldn’t do that in combat!” Before Phil could react, the men reluctantly did as instructed. The lead man immediately stepped on a mine. He was blown to bits with parts of his body sticking to the men behind him. Phil sprinted to the spot of the blast, where he found the soldier—barely alive on the side of a still-smoldering hole about four feet across.[1]

Phil quickly examined what remained: the soldier’s legs had been disintegrated to mid-thigh, and his forearm bones had been broken and stripped of flesh. The soldier made gruesome sucking noises. The young lieutenant stood by in shock, so Phil hollered for a medic and began injecting the man with shots of morphine. As a medic ran up, the man gave out one last hideous groan and blew out his last breath.

Phil felt his chest tighten in fury. He took a deep breath to maintain control in front of the men. He slowly stood and faced the rookie 2nd lieutenant, whose face was drained of color. He appeared older than Phil, and was shaking.

Phil leaned in until their noses nearly touched and whispered so only the officer and the men closest to him could hear him. “Your order just killed one of your men. Now you know what the stakes are. You need to get your shit together if you’re going to lead. You get back to the beach, pronto, and report to your company commander. Let him know I have your men. I will keep them safe, and I will bring them all back. You understand?”

The 2nd lieutenant nodded.

“Then git!” Phil cried as the officer slipped away.

“Double-time!” Phil barked.

As the officer started running, he turned to the men. “Gather around me but stay on the tracks.”

When the men from his and the novice’s squads were close, he said, “Men, you need to learn from today. You’re going to have buddies, good friends, that’ll die right by you in battle when you’re attacking the enemy. Some will get shot. Some will be blown to smithereens by artillery, cut to ribbons right before your eyes. You have to remember that you don’t stop. You don’t ever stop. You do, and you’ll get killed. You can avenge your loss. Kill the Germans, and we’ll win this war. You understand?”

“Yes, sir!” the men cried out.

He looked at one of his men. “You take point.”

“Yes, sir!” the private responded. Phil then turned to the men and barked, “Let’s move out!”

As the soldiers silently passed, Phil looked at the bottom of the still-smoldering crater. He saw a crisp, brand-new one-thousand lira bill—a so-called “AM-lira,” a currency put in circulation by the American military the previous year. At an exchange rate of one hundred AM-lira per U.S. dollar, the bill was worth ten bucks.

It must had blown out of his pocket, Phil thought, as he blinked back tears. The cost of war…the horrible cost of war.

From that point on, Phil would preach to his men what was called the “Murphy’s Law for GIs,” which went like this [1]:

“If the path is easy, it’ll be mined.”[2]

[1] Larimore, At First Light, 116-117.

[2] Mohar, 90.

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