Viet Nam was my war, and being young, dumb, and invincible I volunteered for the draft right out of high school. Dad tried to talk me out of it, even offering to impoverish himself so I could go to college and get a 2-S deferment, but I stuck to my guns. I figured I would have to go anyway, eventually, and volunteering for the draft meant I would only have a two-year obligation. I left for boot camp on my eighteenth birthday.

There was a lot of bad shit that happened over there, and there were a lot of war stories and even some pictures going around about both American and enemy soldiers who had died with their severed genitals stuffed down their throats, as well as quite few other atrocities, but I never encountered anything like that. I spent my entire in-country year behind a desk in an air-conditioned office typing reports for a Colonel.

I traded my unused accrued leave back to the Army and was back home one year and ten months after leaving it. I decompressed for a couple of days, the Dad took me down to his favorite tavern to get me drunk and show me off to his buddies. I was still over a year shy of being twenty-one and legal, but things were a little mellower back then and no bartender would refuse service to a veteran just back from the war, particularly when accompanied by his dad. I didn’t bother pointing out that I was just another Rear Echelon Mother Fucker instead of a real warrior.

We talked and drank all evening, and late that night Dad told me his war story. It was his story, not mine, but he has been dead and gone for seventeen years and by now he probably doesn’t give a shit who all hears it.

“We hit the beach in Italy, and walked the entire length of the country, and it was a real motherfucker,” he said. Dad was the most articulate and well-spoken person I had ever known, and I had never heard him use profanity.

“The Italians just kind of rolled over, but the Germans put up a hell of a fight. We lost a lot of good people over there. You kind of got to where you hated to make friends with the replacements, because you never knew who would be the next to get killed. Anyway, we had this new guy come into the outfit, and honest to god, he was just a kid. We were all kids actually, eighteen, nineteen, and twenty years old. Hell, the oldest gut there, Sarge, was only twenty-five, but this new kid was really young. Fine blond hair, no sign of a beard, just like a kid. He was the kind of guy that we said passed his induction physical standing on a twenty-dollar bill. It was different back then; kids couldn’t wait to join up and get in on the action, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to offer the recruiter a bribe. We ribbed him about his age but he swore he was seventeen, although fifteen seemed more like it. He had a good attitude, and he really wanted to pull his own weight, but we all treated him like a little brother or something, and we all tried to make sure he kept his head down as much as he could.

“We were trying to take this little town and one or more snipers were constantly harassing us. We had to keep moving and keep our heads down all of the time, and even at night we would occasionally hear the thwacking of a bullet hitting the stone walls followed by the sharp crack of his rifle. The snipers used a 7 mm Mauser that shot a high-speed bullet. It was a different sound than the 8 mm rifles that their infantry carried or our own 30-06’s. I don’t think they expected to hit anything at night; they just wanted to mess up our sleep.

We used to sit around in the evenings, and like most young guys we’d start talking about girls. The kid’s embarrassment at not knowing anything made it obvious that he was a virgin. We kidded him about it some, but he took it all in stride. We were all healthy young bucks, and talk like that got us a little worked up. We slept either in two man tents, or all in one big room and there wasn’t any privacy, so we usually waited until we had the night guard duty to take a few minutes and jack off. Anyway, that’s what I did and I just assumed that the other guys did the same thing.

“The kid had the guard duty one night, eight until midnight, and the rest of us had just got bedded down when we heard the crack of the rifle, followed by a wild, unearthly, scream from the kid. His pants and skivvies down around his ankles when we got there, and he was rolled up in a ball. The bullet had caught him from the side, right in his nuts, and they were both completely gone, simply shot away. He had been masturbating when it happened and his cock was still oozing semen. The sun-of –a bitch sniper must have seen him in the moonlight and waited for a clear shot before pulling the trigger. All we could do for the poor kid was get the bleeding slowed down and then evacuate him to the rear area.”

“Jesus, Dad!” I exclaimed. Had it been anyone but my own father telling the story I would have written it off as just another bullshit war story.

“There’s more to the story, son,” Dad took a long drink from his glass, paused for a minute and continued.

“We were still in the town a couple of days later, and we determined that the Germans were using the bell tower of a church for an observation site, so we called in some artillery. The entire bell tower and steeple collapsed, and when we got there we found one German soldier in the rubble. He was young, about my age, and his uniform had the badge of an expert marksman. There was a 7 mm Mauser with a sniper’ scope right beside him. He wasn’t hurt, just shook up and sort of disoriented by the fall. We blindfolded him, and then took him to the basement of the church, searched him, and removed his shoes. They often had important papers or sometimes even weapons concealed in their shoes.

Our policy was to escort all captured prisoners to the rear for interrogation by the specialists, but by then it was only Sarge and myself, and Tex, Arkie, and the Pollack left. The lieutenant, as always, was leading us from somewhere in the rear area where things were a little safer. Sarge just looked at the guy, and then the rest of us for a minute, and took out five matches, broke all but one in half, and held them out to us. I drew the long one and the other guys held the German spread eagle on the dirt floor. Sarge took the sheath knife he always carried and cut the guy’s pants off then handed the knife to me. We still hadn’t said a word to each other.”

“Jesus Christ, Dad” I blurted out. “You didn’t……?”

“Yes, son, I did. It was kind of like a mob or vigilante thing. We had been on the line a long time and we weren’t even thinking like civilized people by then. I took the knife from Sarge, knelt between the guy’s legs, grabbed his balls and cut them off. He screamed like a mashed cat the whole time. We just left him there and went back to mopping up the town. I haven’t slept well since then. When that guy, and we didn’t even know for sure that it was the same sniper, shot the kid’s balls off he was just doing his job, but when I castrated him it was a war crime and I could have been court marshaled for mutilating a prisoner. I keep waking up hold my balls and screaming just like that guy did when I castrated him. I honestly thing that’s what pushed your mother over the edge. She just couldn’t take it any more. I make damn good and sure there aren’t any knives around when I got to bed. I don’t know what I’d do if I had one.”

I forgave my father, but I’m not sure he ever forgave himself. Twenty years later he died when the shotgun he was removing from his truck went off. The coroner ruled that it was an accident, but I know how careful he was around firearms and I think he just wanted a decent night’s sleep.