THIS IS A POST ABOUT CHUCKLER'S FACE
THE PACIFIC
Lew 'Chuckler' Juergens
PICSPAM
quotes from Helmet for my Pillow by Robert Leckie
screencaps by
Chuckler was easier to know. We became friends the first day of gun drill, our introduction into the mysteries of the heavy, water-cooled, thirty-caliber machine gun.
Corporal Smoothface, our instructor, a soft-voiced, sad-eyed youth from Georgia, made the drill a competition between the squads to see which one could get its gun into action sooner. As gunner, Chuckler carried the tripod. As assistant gunner, I lugged the gun, a metal incubus of some twenty pounds. At a command, Chuckler raced off to a given point, spun the tripod over his head and set it up, while I panted off after him to slip the gun's spindle into the tripod socket. We beat the other squad and the Chuckler growled with satisfaction.
"Attaboy, Jersey," he chuckled, as I slid alongside him and placed the machine gun box in feeding position. "Let's show them bastards."
That was his way. He was fiercely competitive. He was profane. He had a way of chuckling, a sort of perpetual good humor, that stopped his aggressiveness short of push, and which softened the impact of his rough language. Like Hoosier and me, he was stocky, and like Hoosier, he was fair; but he had a rugged handsomeness that the Hoosier's blunt features could not match.
Chuckler made corporal. He made it in a battlefield promotion. Lieutenant Ivy-League had recommended him for a Silver Star for our work on the riverbank in the Hell's Point fight, specifying that our action in moving the gun from place to place may have discouraged an enemy flanking attack. The regimental commander reduced the citation to a promotion of one grade. Ivy-League had not mentioned me in his recommendation. I have no idea why not.
Though it was Chuckler who had first grabbed our gun, it was I who had proposed the moves - and Ivy-League knew it. I resented being ignored, although I tried to conceal it, and Chuckler, embarrassed, did his best to pass over it, trying to make a joke of it. But he deserved both promotion and citation, for he was a born leader.
MELBOURNE.
Runner fitted us like a glove. His admiration for Chuckler was akin to hero worship. But Chuckler had the strength to prevent that without offending the Runner, and I suspect he took a human delight in the adulation of the dark-haired boy from Buffalo, who spoke so knowingly of formal dances and automobiles, a world quite apart from Chuckler's Louisville rough-and-tumble.
As friendship became firmer among us four, it became clear that Chuckler's word was going to carry the most weight, simply because he could rely on Runner's support. So Chuckler became the leader, a fact which neither Hoosier nor I ever admitted and which Runner indicated only by his deference to him.
Runner paused and then resumed his tale. "Then the mortars came in again. Chuckler got a big hunk in his left thigh, close up to the crotch." Runner laughed in retrospect. "It was funny. He was so scared he'd lost the family jewels. 'Are they alright?' he asked the corpsman. 'Quick, tell me - are they alright?' 'Take it easy,' the corpsman tells him - 'it wasn't even close. You got plenty of sack time ahead of you.'
So Chuckler lies back smiling. He was so relieved you'd think he'd only cut him finger or something. I swear he'd have asked the corpsman to shoot him if it had been the other way."
♥_____♥
AND NOW THERE IS A CORRESPONDING EPIC RUNNER PICSPAM COURTESY OF uniformly
Lew 'Chuckler' Juergens
PICSPAM
quotes from Helmet for my Pillow by Robert Leckie
screencaps by
Chuckler was easier to know. We became friends the first day of gun drill, our introduction into the mysteries of the heavy, water-cooled, thirty-caliber machine gun.
Corporal Smoothface, our instructor, a soft-voiced, sad-eyed youth from Georgia, made the drill a competition between the squads to see which one could get its gun into action sooner. As gunner, Chuckler carried the tripod. As assistant gunner, I lugged the gun, a metal incubus of some twenty pounds. At a command, Chuckler raced off to a given point, spun the tripod over his head and set it up, while I panted off after him to slip the gun's spindle into the tripod socket. We beat the other squad and the Chuckler growled with satisfaction.
"Attaboy, Jersey," he chuckled, as I slid alongside him and placed the machine gun box in feeding position. "Let's show them bastards."
That was his way. He was fiercely competitive. He was profane. He had a way of chuckling, a sort of perpetual good humor, that stopped his aggressiveness short of push, and which softened the impact of his rough language. Like Hoosier and me, he was stocky, and like Hoosier, he was fair; but he had a rugged handsomeness that the Hoosier's blunt features could not match.
Chuckler made corporal. He made it in a battlefield promotion. Lieutenant Ivy-League had recommended him for a Silver Star for our work on the riverbank in the Hell's Point fight, specifying that our action in moving the gun from place to place may have discouraged an enemy flanking attack. The regimental commander reduced the citation to a promotion of one grade. Ivy-League had not mentioned me in his recommendation. I have no idea why not.
Though it was Chuckler who had first grabbed our gun, it was I who had proposed the moves - and Ivy-League knew it. I resented being ignored, although I tried to conceal it, and Chuckler, embarrassed, did his best to pass over it, trying to make a joke of it. But he deserved both promotion and citation, for he was a born leader.
MELBOURNE.
Runner fitted us like a glove. His admiration for Chuckler was akin to hero worship. But Chuckler had the strength to prevent that without offending the Runner, and I suspect he took a human delight in the adulation of the dark-haired boy from Buffalo, who spoke so knowingly of formal dances and automobiles, a world quite apart from Chuckler's Louisville rough-and-tumble.
As friendship became firmer among us four, it became clear that Chuckler's word was going to carry the most weight, simply because he could rely on Runner's support. So Chuckler became the leader, a fact which neither Hoosier nor I ever admitted and which Runner indicated only by his deference to him.
Runner paused and then resumed his tale. "Then the mortars came in again. Chuckler got a big hunk in his left thigh, close up to the crotch." Runner laughed in retrospect. "It was funny. He was so scared he'd lost the family jewels. 'Are they alright?' he asked the corpsman. 'Quick, tell me - are they alright?' 'Take it easy,' the corpsman tells him - 'it wasn't even close. You got plenty of sack time ahead of you.'
So Chuckler lies back smiling. He was so relieved you'd think he'd only cut him finger or something. I swear he'd have asked the corpsman to shoot him if it had been the other way."
♥_____♥
AND NOW THERE IS A CORRESPONDING EPIC RUNNER PICSPAM COURTESY OF uniformly