After the Stalag Years
Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself. Francis Meehan
It's Cookie again, you haven't heard from me in a few years. This time around it's December 1950, the five year anniversary of the end of WWII, and the day of the Stalag 17, barrack 4, POW reunion. Everyone in the old gang was notified, well, not exactly everyone, not Sergeant J.J. Sefton. It isn't as if we, Sergeant Hoffman and myself that is, didn't consider it, Hoffy phoned me from his place all the way up in Vermont to ask me what I thought about the whole idea of having Sefton invited. I couldn't help but remember his last words to us the night he escaped, "If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, just let's pretend we've never met before". Who can blame the guy after what he went through those last few days. We didn't even know if Sefton was alive, so we just left it at that.
Schulz and his goons came down hard on us after the escape; the Colonel didn't take too kindly to the fact that he could no longer tell his kraut cronies that he was running the only camp where the POWs didn't make it 10 feet past the barbed wire fences. But even after the shake down the whole outfit was still intact, and most of the ones who had been unmarried now had wives and some even had kids. Duke had himself a wife and a kid and so did Hoffy. Sefton sure was wrong about Animal and Shapiro needing new faces to get themselves some good-looking dames, Animal found himself a nice curvy blonde, whose name somehow happened to be Betty, and Harry Shapiro got himself a Russian Kremlin of his own. Nothing made us happier than the sight of Joey with a girl in hand instead of an ocarina.
The whole get-together was at a big fancy hotel in New York, all set up for the yuletide festivities. There was a giant tree in the lobby, which put our Stalag tannenbaums to shame, decked out with decorations hanging from every branch. I can still remember the way the dog tags reflected the light off the branches of the scraggly trees in the camp the Christmas Eve before the escape, the day the Geneva man came all we could do was smile and nod because everything was just peachy, considering.
It was strange how after so many years we could recognize each other faster than you can say Kris Kringle. As soon as all us POWs saw each other entering the lobby, one after the other, the hugs and slaps on the back began and conversation started to flow on the spot.
"Hey Suzy this is the son-of-a-gun I was tellin' you about!"
"It's swell to see you again you lousy bug wit!"
"Ah, look at all you sack rats, you haven't changed a bit."
I even heard Bagradian doing some Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper impersonations nearby. After nearly an hour of standing around and getting the scoop on what everyone was up to I heard someone shout out, "Heya, it's Sefton". It was Animal's voice.