The Ravine, Forgiveness, And My Father

     The question - as all good questions do - came straight out of a delicious and unpredictable moment:  "Do you ever know for sure, I mean really for sure, that you  actually killed someone in the war?"
     A few seconds of uncomfortable silence followed, which I expected; the nature of my father's quiet answer, I did not.
     "Yes."
     I looked up from my newspaper at my father, who still stared down at his breakfast plate.  In the midst of the scrambled eggs and turkey bacon he searched for answers.  Most likely he was simultaneously recalling and fighting away memories, wondering and going back in time.
     "You did?" Mom asked.
     "It's in the book," Dad replied, still looking down at his eggs.
     A few years ago - after much plodding on my part - my father wrote the memoirs of his World War II experience in a now-copyrighted book which I edited on an old so-last-century word processor.  It was a labor of love.  
     It began with a draft notice and a ride in an unheated bus to the certainty of basic training in Louisiana.  Eventually there was a seasick-inducing ride across the Atlantic in troop ships that used tens of thousands of gallons of fuel for ballast, which would not have produced a good result had they taken an enemy torpedo.  Eventually, England.  There, the uncertainty ended with the reality of a nearby and vicious war.
     Staff Sergeant Dad was a tank commander, the guy who directed the movement of travel for that machine and a bunch of other stuff that a novice like me would never understand.  After weeks of more training, his unit eventually made its way over to the European mainland.
     In his book were many anecdotes of army life, including an abscessed tooth, a near-plunge off the side of a mountain, a man shot through both hands and both knees while bent over huddled for warmth, and a toss by another soldier of a mostly empty and "fake" grenade that had just enough powder left in it to explode.  Unexpectedly explode.  Eventually the book - and the war - began to wind down.

     Towards the end of the conflict, Dad's tank was part of a contingent that had German units trapped in a ravine.  The enemy would not surrender, and a decision was made from upper levels of command that Allied tanks would be driven through the ravine in order to flush out the enemy.  Dad's tank was among the ones given the order and, being the tank commander, he directed his driver to proceed into the ravine.  Moments later, the sunken ground was cleared of the enemy.  The Germans died where they were prone and hidden, also instructed and so ordered to hold their ground.
     I wondered what Dad was thinking the other morning when the question was asked of him.  Did he remember the sounds?  The fear?  Did he recall the directness of the orders in his ear?  The revving of the tank engine?  The feel of the unevenness beneath the tank tracks?  The sight of - in his words in the book - helping his fellow soldiers clean shards of flesh out of the tank tracks while alternately stepping away to become physically ill?  He remembered all of those things, most likely.
     That morning, I wanted to say again to him as I've said before that it wasn't his fault.  That he was just following orders, helping to rid the world of a great, incendiary evil, and, that in all such quests, the defenseless die.  Dad is the most gentle-hearted man that I could know, and I know that deep down that he understands this and how war works.  Does it still bother him after all these years?  Sure.  No one could ever erase that from their mind.  He's forgiven and understood, though.  I believe that it bothers him most that as he nears the end of his life, he fears that God won't understand or forgive what happened in that European ravine.
     But God knows, loves, and understands gentle souls.  And he knows yours, Dad.  He was there in that ravine that day and He was with you in your tortured moment at the breakfast table.  He is there with you in the night when those memories come.  He remembers all and He forgives the gentle.
     And Dad?  He forgives you.