Blizzard of Memories

I stand in the doorway of my cabin, watching the snow fall. It's midwinter, 1946 but it doesn't feel that way. Constantly, flashbacks rage through my mind. Flashbacks from the war which ended a year ago. I clench my teeth together, trying to stop the flood of horrors that whirl through my mind, triggered by the falling snow. But it's in vain. It always is.

A soldier huddled beside me in the falling snow as we crouch in a trench waiting for someone. Anyone. Whether it was a rescue plane or even an enemy soldier. One to end the pain right there. My fellow fighter hadn't lasted the night. Unfortunately, I've lived to tell the tale. Most days, I wish I hadn't.

Sitting in the mud in a trench under constant fire, men yelling around me. Fear pounding in my chest, threatening to burst from it. Commands flying around, men falling dead. Friends falling dead. I lived down there for weeks. Months. Years even. Life was a constant battle from the fear of sickness and the darkness that surrounded me as I lay awake all night to the rage of battle, the spray of bullets, and the constant threat of death.

They're all gone now. Gone or crazy. I'm one of the only one left from my legion. Well, if you count crazy, I may not be. My mind is never my own anymore.

Then there were the jumps. I was a paratrooper for the last year or so, leaping from airplanes into the open sky. When I close my eyes, I can still feel the cold air rushing all around me. Can still hear the whistling and howling of the wind, can still smell the crisp air and distinct smell of each climate. And, of course, the fear pounding in my chest as I struggled to breathe.

Suddenly all around me the wind picks up and I'm snapped back to reality as I'm blasted with the blizzard picking up all around me. I should go inside. But the sudden gust of ice and snow has reminded me of another memory. One I keep locked away to maintain my sanity. Because this memory wasn't just the fault of the war. It wasn't an enemy soldier that got my best friend killed. It was me.

Henry Ford, a tall, good humored young man with light brown hair and green eyes had been the only man I'd come to know through the war. I hadn't let myself become truly acquainted with any other men in my legion besides the natural comradery that comes along with a war. The feeling towards the other men fighting for their lives with you, the ones you depend on to survive and they depend on you. Knowing that they understand exactly what you're going through to some extent of their own.

But my friendship with Henry was more than that. It hadn't been my choice. One battle, I saw a man down after the opposing side had retreated. The rest of the legion had started back to the trench but I'd seen him twitch. I walked over to found him breathing, if barely. There wasn't much chance of survival for him and I'd been trained to leave men behind at this point. But for some reason, I couldn't get the feeling off my chest that I had to try to save him, even if it was futile. I'd carried Henry all the way back to the trench, almost five miles. After he'd recovered, he'd pretty much insisted on our friendship in his own humerous way. For a while, I was glad for this friendship, someone I could really tell almost anything. Someone who would probably really understand. Now though, I wish I'd stayed entirely closed off like I'd planned too. In the moment, I was glad for the friendship, but after what happened, I'd have been better off without it. I wouldn't have had to worry at all that day. That day in the snow.

It doesn't matter how much I try to stop the memories from playing in my mind over and over. All I can do is screw my eyes shut and remember again and again. Except at night when they come and twist themselves into fears far greater than they really had been. Sometimes, they don't need too though. A lot of times, the moment was bad enough as is. Bad enough that maybe my mind can't even come up with anything worse.

It had been December 17th, 1944, and, while it hadn't been the worst winter weather we got in the war, the storms had raged ferociously. We'd done only one jump that winter due to those storms, Operation Stösser. The Germans had intended the Battle of the Bulge as a surprise attack on the Allies intended to rip our forces apart. It had backfired on them though when the weather cleared up a bit and we'd gotten more troops and attained victory over them. But just because we'd won, that didn't mean we hadn't lost men. We had lost men. 75,000 men to be exact. And a lot of those deaths had been a direct result of my fire, my weapons, my actions. It isn't like I had had a choice but that didn't really matter. It didn't change the fact that a lot of young men who were fighting for their country had died while I lived. Including Henry who was a much more honerable man than I am. A man that deserved life a lot more than I do.

The jump had happened a day after the ambush had happened and I'd been completely unprepared. The other men and I had assumed we wouldn't be jumping for a few months due to the weather. So when the door had burst open and the mesenger had told us to get our gear on and get in the air, my heart had begun to beat so fast I'd thought I was having a panick attack.

Twenty minutes later, Henry and I were in the air along with at least a hundred other men spread out among the planes. Henry and I were charged to lead different troops, so I'd said goodbye to him before getting into the plane. I still remember the last words I heard him say.

"You ready for this James?"

"As ready as I am now." I'd said. He tilted his head at me and laughed.

"How much more ready can you be I guess." Then he's sobered. "Are you scared?"

"Come on, Henry." I said softly.

"We're going to make it back. And if not, we'll have died for America. What else can a soldier ask for?"

"I guess." I said. "Do you even wonder if the war is going to end? Or if maybe the world will just fall apart and never return to the way it was before?"

"I won't ever." He had said quietly. "Be the same. But as long as we all keep remembering what we've fought for we can always rebuild. As long as we remember why we fought then maybe we can come back together and form something better than before."

"But only if we really do know."

"I do." He said with an air of defiance.

"I do too." I had nodded. "Or I hope I do. But sometimes I wonder if the reason I think I do is really the right reason."

"So do I. All the time."

"Well, we've got to go." I'd said.

"See you, James. Fight like hell. Don't give up."

"You too." I'd said. "I'll see you on the other side of the battle." But as I'd turned to the plane I'd wondered if there would be another side of the war for both of us. Or if we'd have to wait for the other side of life.

The wind screamed around me and my face grew numb as I fell from the plane. I'd remembered the first rule I'd learned in the school for paratroopers I'd gone to.

Let your parachute go after five seconds. No earlier. No later.

And yes, the five seconds of freefall was probably the most terrifying part of a jump.

Five. I'd thought. Fear pounded in my chest.

Four. The cold bit at my face.

Three. The wind howled around me.

Two. My teeth were clenched as I suddenly got an impulse to scream. I'd never do that of course though. Brave men don't shriek as they fall from an airplane into a battle they may never return from.

One. I had yanked hard on the strap and the parashoot had billowed up behind me into the night sky.

I'd landed in the war zone in a roll, cutting of my parachute and immediately began shooting. In a jump like this, we'd been trained to shoot at everything and everyone, accepting the risk of killing their own troops. The alternate option was to die. Shoot or die. That was the rule.

And so that had been why when I'd caught a glimpse from behind me of a man running, I'd turned and hurled grenade in his direction. There had been no time to reconsider my choice, even when I'd seen his brown hair and his familiar green eyes turning towards me.

He's frozen in my memory that way. His determined green eyes, his tousled brown hair, sweat pouring down his face, battle worn. He's frozen that way, right before the bomb that killed him went off. Right before I lost him. His last words to me echo through my head again as I stare out at the falling snow.

See you James. Fight like hell. Don't give up.

I had fought like hell. I'd fought too hard. I'd killed him.

Would I ever escape the memories of the war? Would I ever be able to let it go? Maybe Henry was better off in the end. Because he doesn't have to remember over and over.

But maybe I am. Because I can still remember what life was like before the war all started. And sometimes when I contrast the bad memories with that, I can try to remember how life was before. Sometimes, I think those good memories are the only thing that holds me together. And sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can, for a moment, bring some of those memories back.

But right now, I don't really think at all. I just stand in the doorway of my small cabin in the woods, smelling the scent of the pine trees around me, breathing the crisp winter air, feeling the wood beneath my fingers and the cold creep beneath my skin, and watch the cold white snow fall.