Dream Log: WW II Soldier in Italy

I dreamed I was an American Army private on a ship just off the coast of south-western Italy in January 1944, part of the force which was going to invade Anzio.

In real life, when the Allies came ashore on Anzio's beach on January 22, under the command of Major General John Lucas,  they spent days building up their position on the beach, unloading men and equipment, instead of taking advantage of weak German defenses and attempting to seize territory and expand their beachhead. The result of this was to allow German troops to rush in and surround the beach from high ground on all sides. The Allies didn't break out from their position on the beach until May, after having suffered tens of thousands of casualties. 

In my dream, Lucas had been replaced by General George Patton, who was popular with his troops because he had a reputation for getting relatively few of them killed. In my dream I was in one of the first waves of troops to hit the beach, and by the time we got there some were already far ahead, marching on the road to Rome, and we were ordered to catch up to them double-quick. A while later American tanks caught up with us, and took on as many of us foot soldiers as they could carry. I was on of the soldiers riding on the outside of a tank.

After less resistance along the way than we had expected, we arrived in great numbers in Rome on the 24th of January, to find that the Germans had evacuated the city and taken up positions to the north and west. While most of the invading force had little time to recuperate before pushing on beyond the city, I was stationed there more permanently. 

I was promoted from private to sergeant first class, and then a while later to second lieutenant. As soon as I became an officer, my lifestyle changed completely. My quarters changed from a warehouse, which I had already considered to be quite nice because it had been dry and clean and even fairly warm, to an upper-middle-class mansion which just a handful of us had all to ourselves. I spent my days in palaces, working mostly as an interpreter and translator, hobnobbing with international aristocracy and famous artists. 

All of this was definitely preferable to slogging through mud for days at a time, beaten eaten alive by fleas and mosquitoes while being shot at.

 

A crooked Major was stealing just as much fine art as was able to load onto trucks, using my name so that he could attempt to frame me if his business went south. It did, I was arrested, but soon exonerated. The Major had picked a fall-guy who was friends with way too many artists.

A beautiful young Italian princess fell head-over-heels in love with me. To my astonishment, her family approved of me. (Speaking privately to me, her father, the Prince, shared some remarkably enlightened concerns about aristocratic inbreeding and a too-narrow gene pool.) After we finished trouncing the Axis -- sooner than irl because Anzio and some other things had gone better than in real life -- I retired from the Army and married her, adding the new title of viscount to my Army rank of captain. In addition to our always being much more than welcome in the family's numerous homes, we were presented with a lovely little (compared to some. Huge compared to most) house of our own near Tivoli as a wedding present. Well, la-dee-da.

Up until then the dream had been fairly realistic apart from telescoping time. Now, however, things took a decidedly abstract-dreamlike turn, as the beautiful Princess and I -- the shimmering luxury of her long black hair! Her dark eyes smoldering with passion! Her ivory skin! Her form like that of a goddess! -- spent time in an activity in which we were ourselves, life-size humans, and simultaneously each of us a polished wooden tile about two inches long by three tall with a portrait of her or me or someone else done somewhat in the manner of the portraits on playing cards, and we would take ourselves and other people -- that is, we would take these little wooden tiles -- and arrange them in patterns which were symbolic and powerful and endlessly fascinating. Somewhat like tarot, somewhat like the Glass Bead Game. Unlike tarot, instead of interpreting the world, this activity shaped it, changed it. This went on for quite a while before I woke up.

Not Since 1945

Bill O'Reilly has criticized the baggers for holding the debt ceiling hostage to extreme demands and risking the first Federal government default in the history of the US. No doubt O'Reilly's accountant informed him that a default would a) cost him a lot of money and b) lead to mobs of desperate poor senior citizens and disabled persons with nothing left to lose rising up like the fishwives of Paris in 1789, brandishing walkers and canes instead of pikes, storming his gated community as if it were Versailles and burning it to the ground, if he did not distance himself from the mishigas.

When O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann agree on something, it ought to make you stop and think. (Not the baggers-- you. When I find something that will make the baggers think, I will let you know immediately, I will alert the media, I will email the White House and my Congressional representatives. When and if.) Economists from every point on the political spectrum, including some people who never before in their lives have agreed with each other about anything, have agreed that this hostage situation with the debt ceiling has been bad. Very, very bad. Investors from all over the world have agreed, many of whom could not name a half dozen American politicians to save their lives. The Wall Street Journal and the Times of London and Mother Jones and Der Spiegel and Jungle World and le Figaro all agree, and the Asian markets, and the Argentinian gauchos.

The only comparable group, the only group I can think of of such international breadth and ideological diversity who ever were united against anything, is the group of countries who declared war against Germany in World War II: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Byelorussia, Canada, Chile, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iran, Iraq, Italy (in 1943), Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, The Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, Turkey, the Ukraine, the Soviet Union, the UK, the USA, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, and I'm sincerely sorry if I left anybody out. How often, before or after the provocation of the Nazis, did a half, or a third, of all of those nations ever agree about anything?

It took a hell of a lot to get all of those countries to declare war. It took quite a lot for some reputedly smart people to oppose them at all. Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler and described him as a reasonable man.

In hindsight, although people might and do argue about whether Hitler was Christian, or pagan, or agnostic or atheist; whether he was neurotic, or psychotic, or quite sane and crafty -- no-one describes him as reasonable anymore. Early on in his career, in the 20's and early 30's, people often were appalled at the way the German Communists physically fought in the streets against the Nazis, with all the violent force they had -- eventually the whole world had to do the same thing. Because they would see no reason, would make no compromise, would tolerate no contradiction.