THE WALL OF FACES

Not too many people arrived in infantry units with smiles on their faces. There was little to smile about in those days. Johnnie Harris was an exception. When he joined my squad as a replacement he came wearing a smile and I don't recall looking at him when it wasn't on his face. I'm sure he was as frightened as the other men coming into our unit but I don't believe a somber attitude was part of his makeup. He helped all of us smile when nothing else could. His time with us was short but his effect on everyone he touched was mighty. He used to go around singing the Temptation's 'I Wish It Would Rain', hardly something any of us wished for, yet somehow it enlivened everyone's spirit. I was with him when he was wounded and was placed next to him on the Medevac pad after I too was wounded. He knew he was seriously hurt but his thoughts were on his mother and not himself. There was photo in his pack of him holding a beer can at some base back in the States. He made me promise to remove it so it wouldn't be sent to his mother who was a very devout religious woman. He was afraid the picture would hurt her. I'm sure she would have been very proud of him if she had known how concerned he was for her as he lay in that distant jungle so so far from home. Johnnie died the next day. I never had a chance to get that photo.