Gary Hosfield
5/5/08
Period 8
Art & War
Beaches and Screams
The sounds drove me crazy. I wanted to sit down and hold my ears. Maybe it would all go away. The sights were worse. So bad, in fact, that you can convince yourself they’re not even there at all. Those hit you later. It’s amazing how much damage even a few minutes of combat can do to you, even if you manage to survive. Surrounded by all of the chaos, all you can t
hink about is, “Why?”
I remember storming the beaches. How many were there? It doesn’t even matter. The story, my story, is the same at each one. You hear about it and it seems like a pretty good idea. I remember an operation called D-Day from 1944. It was on some beach, but they all end up looking the same. The plan was simple. We just needed to get off the boats, take out some machine gun nests, and just like that the beach would be ours. I don’t remember why we needed that beach, but I was going to try damn hard to get it.
As we were approaching the beach, the boat right in front of me
got blown to hell. It was so loud I thought I was dead too. And there were these screams. It could have been the shell right before it hit, it could have been the dead men’s last cry, or it could have been me. All I know is nobody should ever have to hear that noise. It sounds like death. We made it to the beach okay, and we all started running off the boat. I have no idea where everyone thought they were going. All of our training was done, well, in training. None of that makes any difference when real bullets are whizzing by you and your buddies are
falling dead into the sand all around you. All you can do is run to somewhere you think you might be less likely to die, and not let anything stop you. Everywhere you looked there was something bad; sometimes it was the fire coming fro
m the hill or else it was the sand stained red by the men there only five seconds before you were. Every man out there looked the same; just trying to stay alive. Most were unsuccessful. I remember I was running next to my friend, or maybe I didn’t even know him at all, or I guess it could gave been me, but that’s not important. What was important was that he was running, just like the rest of us. Then just like that there was no life left in him. He was just a little more blood for the sand to soak up. This kid could have been any of us. He grew up, celebrated birthdays with his family, took his first steps, learned to ride a bike, kissed a girl for the first time. Almost two decades of life gone. That’s it. 
I remember that feeling. My whole life didn’t flash before my eyes, but I sure knew that it was all there. What a waste. All I could think about as I ran up the beach was after all of the decisions I made in all of my years, how the hell did I end up here? Then it went black. And there was that noise again. I know it was me that time. I wanted to apologize to all of my buddies running all around me; no human should ever have to hear that noise. A real scream is like nothing you’ve ever heard before. Makes you go cold.
There was another beach somewhere on a Japanese island called Iwo Jima - halfway around the world but the exact same story. Kids ran up, got gunned down, and that was that. Nobody knew why. It was chaos. I died over and over again on both of them and all over the place. Sometimes I was driving a car, sometimes I was walking and didn’t even know I was under attack. There were a few times I was trying to help out a friend and just like that I was gunned down. Bullets don’t have any id
ea who they’re hitting; they kill everyone just the same. After all of those battles I remember walking around and seeing myself all over the place. I was being washed back and fourth by the waves, it was my blood staining the sand and coloring the water, I was the one moaning on the stretcher with half an arm gone. I remember seeing myself lying next to some road trying to hold onto my last few minutes on earth. All of those memories of a time when I never would have believed man could do something like this and all of those why questions, those were all mine. I watched myself die over and over again, and knew it would be me soon because, in all seriousness, war is hell. War is chaos, and war is that goddamn noise. It’s that scream that I may or may not have let out as I watched my friend die, or as I watched the shell falling right next to me, or as I struggled to cling on to life as I bled out there. After all of this, you may be wondering why we all do it or what its all for. Keep askin
g, nobody’s going to be able to tell you.
Who am I to be lecturing about the beaches and the screams? I am the American soldier from World War II. I fought and died on those beaches. I let out and heard those screams. I carried myself back to the camp as I screamed in pain. And when it was all over I looked over the battlefield at thousands and thousands of lost lives. I’ll never understand why.
5/5/08
Period 8
Art & War
Beaches and Screams
The sounds drove me crazy. I wanted to sit down and hold my ears. Maybe it would all go away. The sights were worse. So bad, in fact, that you can convince yourself they’re not even there at all. Those hit you later. It’s amazing how much damage even a few minutes of combat can do to you, even if you manage to survive. Surrounded by all of the chaos, all you can t
hink about is, “Why?”I remember storming the beaches. How many were there? It doesn’t even matter. The story, my story, is the same at each one. You hear about it and it seems like a pretty good idea. I remember an operation called D-Day from 1944. It was on some beach, but they all end up looking the same. The plan was simple. We just needed to get off the boats, take out some machine gun nests, and just like that the beach would be ours. I don’t remember why we needed that beach, but I was going to try damn hard to get it.
As we were approaching the beach, the boat right in front of me
got blown to hell. It was so loud I thought I was dead too. And there were these screams. It could have been the shell right before it hit, it could have been the dead men’s last cry, or it could have been me. All I know is nobody should ever have to hear that noise. It sounds like death. We made it to the beach okay, and we all started running off the boat. I have no idea where everyone thought they were going. All of our training was done, well, in training. None of that makes any difference when real bullets are whizzing by you and your buddies are
falling dead into the sand all around you. All you can do is run to somewhere you think you might be less likely to die, and not let anything stop you. Everywhere you looked there was something bad; sometimes it was the fire coming fro
m the hill or else it was the sand stained red by the men there only five seconds before you were. Every man out there looked the same; just trying to stay alive. Most were unsuccessful. I remember I was running next to my friend, or maybe I didn’t even know him at all, or I guess it could gave been me, but that’s not important. What was important was that he was running, just like the rest of us. Then just like that there was no life left in him. He was just a little more blood for the sand to soak up. This kid could have been any of us. He grew up, celebrated birthdays with his family, took his first steps, learned to ride a bike, kissed a girl for the first time. Almost two decades of life gone. That’s it. 
I remember that feeling. My whole life didn’t flash before my eyes, but I sure knew that it was all there. What a waste. All I could think about as I ran up the beach was after all of the decisions I made in all of my years, how the hell did I end up here? Then it went black. And there was that noise again. I know it was me that time. I wanted to apologize to all of my buddies running all around me; no human should ever have to hear that noise. A real scream is like nothing you’ve ever heard before. Makes you go cold.
There was another beach somewhere on a Japanese island called Iwo Jima - halfway around the world but the exact same story. Kids ran up, got gunned down, and that was that. Nobody knew why. It was chaos. I died over and over again on both of them and all over the place. Sometimes I was driving a car, sometimes I was walking and didn’t even know I was under attack. There were a few times I was trying to help out a friend and just like that I was gunned down. Bullets don’t have any id
ea who they’re hitting; they kill everyone just the same. After all of those battles I remember walking around and seeing myself all over the place. I was being washed back and fourth by the waves, it was my blood staining the sand and coloring the water, I was the one moaning on the stretcher with half an arm gone. I remember seeing myself lying next to some road trying to hold onto my last few minutes on earth. All of those memories of a time when I never would have believed man could do something like this and all of those why questions, those were all mine. I watched myself die over and over again, and knew it would be me soon because, in all seriousness, war is hell. War is chaos, and war is that goddamn noise. It’s that scream that I may or may not have let out as I watched my friend die, or as I watched the shell falling right next to me, or as I struggled to cling on to life as I bled out there. After all of this, you may be wondering why we all do it or what its all for. Keep askin
g, nobody’s going to be able to tell you.Who am I to be lecturing about the beaches and the screams? I am the American soldier from World War II. I fought and died on those beaches. I let out and heard those screams. I carried myself back to the camp as I screamed in pain. And when it was all over I looked over the battlefield at thousands and thousands of lost lives. I’ll never understand why.
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