In 1941, when I was fifteen, the United States entered World War II—what Studs Terkel called “the Good War.” We were just coming out of the Great Depression, my father had recently died, and the world seemed upside down. My mom really had her hands full taking care of my sister, Mary, my brother, John, and me. Toward the end of the war, when I turned eighteen, I was drafted. I had my basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey. I knew that I was in for it as soon as I got there. As they do, they immediately started trying to tear me down. My drill sergeant was out to get me right off the bat; the seriousness of what was ahead became apparent rather quickly.
When I was first sent overseas, I was assigned as an infantryman. We landed in France and marched our way to Germany. It was right after the Battle of the Bulge, and we were sent in as relief soldiers for those who had just won that fight. It was a bloody, bloody battle, and I’ll never forget the faces and the psychological trauma of the soldiers that I met coming off the front lines. You just knew that they would never be the same. They all looked like they were going mad and heading straight to the insane asylum; they’d never get over what happened to them.
I watch what is happening today, and it deeply saddens me to see the same thing still going on. It’s absolutely disrespectful the way the veterans are being treated after they’ve put their lives on the line. They need to be taken care of in a proper fashion—given new jobs and top-notch medical care, both physical and psychological. Thankfully, the general public has a better understanding of the effect that war has on the mind now. We all knew men who suffered from post-traumatic stress during and after World War II, but it was simply swept under the rug.
My regiment’s job was to sweep German towns for any straggling Nazis. It was a very dangerous affair, and nothing in basic training could have prepared us for what we faced. We were all petrified. When I arrived in Germany, the fighting was still raging, and many nights we were awakened by bombs exploding and gunfire all around us. More than once I was nearly killed. The Germans had this one bomb that made a very distinct whistling sound. They dropped a lot of them, but one day I heard that whistle coming right toward me. It was so loud. Oh my God! I said to myself. This is it. I prayed that it wouldn’t hit me. I remember promising God that I would try my best to be a better person and that I’d go to church every Sunday, if only I would be spared.
Well, it landed right in our trench, no more than forty feet off. It could have been all over for me right then and there. That bomb landed so close that I will never forget the explosive noise it made. Afterward, I did keep my promise to try to become a better person.
That night was one of several close calls. I used to do sketches down in the foxhole as a distraction. It helped to keep me centered and kept my mind off the madness. We saw dead soldiers, dead horses, and huge craters left from the explosions. When you first go to the front line and see a dead person, even if he’s the enemy, you look at him and just say, “What a tragedy.” To me, it seemed inhuman to kill somebody. After that experience, I became a pacifist for the rest of my life. Killing is the lowest form of human behavior; it’s so ignorant for people to maim and hurt one another.
The only good thing to come out of my experiences in Germany was that this was where I had my first real taste of performing when I was transferred to the armed services band as a librarian. It was also the very first time I ever made a record, “Saint James Infirmary Blues.” The song was recorded on what they called a V-disc, which the army would put together for the troops. It was a very fragile, cheap 78-rpm record that they could easily manufacture and distribute. A friend of mine located an original copy of my recording a couple of years ago and gave it to me as a present; it is now one of my prized possessions. We just released it to the public for the first time last year.
The soldiers in my group were eighteen to twenty years old. We just wanted to stay alive and make it back in one piece, but many of my friends were not so lucky. The whole time I was there, I was just waiting for the war to be over so I could go home.
Our company crossed the Rhine in trucks, flushing out Germans who were hiding in towns that were already cleared. We had to fight them from house to house, in town after town, one small village after another. Early on, I was pretty naïve. I had a few close calls, like the time I was standing in front of an open window of a home, only to be suddenly tackled to the ground by an older soldier. He dragged me out of the way, and when we got up and dusted ourselves off, he explained to me that I could’ve gotten killed by walking in front of a window if a sniper was waiting to pick someone off. It didn’t take me long to learn the tricks of the trade after that.
I was passing through a town with the remaining few men from my company, on our way to meet up with the rest of the division, when out of nowhere a German tank descended upon us. Herbert Black, a good friend of mine whom we’d nicknamed “Blackie,” and who manned the bazooka, was the only guy who had any ammunition left. He got down on one knee and yelled, “You’d better get down, Tony, because I’m gonna let this fly! It’s gonna be us or them!” As the tank’s turret started turning toward us, he aimed the bazooka right down the barrel of the cannon and fired. It was a direct hit, just in time. He disabled the tank and saved all of our lives. Later he received the Silver Star for his acts of heroism.
During my time in the army, I helped to liberate the Landsberg concentration camp, which was thirty miles from the notorious Dachau. This impacted me deeply, and further shaped me into a pacifist. Words can’t express the emotions I felt when I saw the horror of what had happened there—the faces of the people who had suffered; these pitiful human beings who had nowhere to go. Simply put, it was an absolute tragedy.
Every war is insane, no matter what the reason. It is amazing to me that with all the great teachers—including Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela—the great masters of literature and art, and all the contributions that have been made on the planet, we still haven’t come up with a more humane approach to working out conflicts. War is archaic. Simply put, violence begets violence; history has proved this to be true. I just hope that someday the people in power will realize that war is not a solution to the world’s problems. We only live to one hundred years at most; why use that time to harm others? We should just count our blessings and be happy that we’re alive.
The Zen of Bennett
Killing is the lowest form of human behavior.
Every war is insane, no matter what it’s about.
It is wrong for people to fight and kill one another.
War is not a solution to the world’s problems.
