I’d like to tell you that this was an easy movie to watch.
It wasn’t.
Like Band of Brothers, like Saving Private Ryan, this movie was good but hard to watch.? A guy in my class had brought it in for another guy, saying it was his favorite movie. Favorite.? Not that it was good, but that it was his favorite.? Those types of words catch my ears.
When Trumpets Fade is set late in WWII, during the battle of Hurtgen Forest.? I actually went there, years ago, when I was a lieutenant.? We walked the land, saw the sights, talked about the fighting.? And I remember thinking then that it was a horrible place to fight, that there was no way to win.? A meat grinder.? And it truly was.
The movie opens with Private Manning humping it back to the rear, carrying a wounded buddy on his back.? His friend is dying; the both know it.? Hang in there, they both plead.? Until it’s too late.? Until they both realize that he’s not going to make it.? The friend dies; Manning survives.
Is there a worse feeling?? I can save him, I can save him, I can save him, crap, I can’t save him.
And no one else survives.? Manning’s platoon is gone.? His company has been decimated, damn near wiped out overnight.? Manning already had a reputation of being a shirker, the one to hold back just a little, to never be up all the way at the front or close to the danger and bullets.? One step behind the guy who gets shot, or steps on the mine.? But he has survived.? And he gets promoted.? SGT Manning.
Which he doesn’t want to be.? He’s given new replacements to lead, a hodge podge of guys who are more concerned with the talk that the war will be over by Christmas.? Damn replacements — so new that they don’t know what they don’t know.? So new, they pose a danger not just to themselves but to others.? So new that Manning sees them as already lost, already dead. His worry is that they will take him with them into death.
My heart sank when one of the new replacements got separated from the others when out on patrol.? He hunkered down on the ground, and waited as a German patrol passes.? Just don’t fucking move, I told myself.? Don’t fucking breath.? Hold your damn breath and don’t move at all. Not your eyes, not your head, not your foot.? How many of our soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere have gotten separated, and been in that exact same predicament?? It is a feeling of dread as old as warfare itself.
And of course he breathed.? And he moved.? And I cringed.? He’s gonna die.
He didn’t.? Manning’s commander, facing a Battalion push to take the river crossing, needs a squad to go on what everyone knows will be a suicide mission — go silence the 88′s that are tearing them to shreds.? The commander says he’ll get Manning out of there and to the rear if he leads his men — those new replacements — on the mission.? Succeed, and the war is over; fail, and he’s dead.
Manning agrees.
How tough is war, when you’re willing to roll the dice with that on the line?? Ever had a job that you’d risk five lives, just to see end?? When the fighting started, and the waves were going forward, I’d bet $10 that there were guys heading out into harm’s way thinking, OK, go ahead and wound me so I can get evacuated out of here.? Maybe I’ll get lucky and not lose a limb.? Just getting shot would be OK.
Manning proves to be a good leader, if you understand what Frederick the Great meant: soldiers should fear their leaders more than the death and injury they face, otherwise they’ll turn and run.? Manning literally proves that this works, though it’s certainly not the preferred method today.
In taking out the 88′s, there’s a scene with Sanderson, one of the replacements, running forward to the guns and the few remaining German crew members.? He’s screaming at the top of his lungs — his war cry.? He’s huffing and puffing, moving as fast as he can, which isn’t all that fast since he’s got a flame-thrower strapped to his back.? And he’s got the trigger pulled on that thing, throwing burning fuel everywhere as he makes his way up to the guns and the fleeing German soldiers.? He’s so full of fear and hate and adrenalin that he’s beyond controllable.? And he kills them all.? Fire everywhere.? Flames seemingly pouring out of his body like evilness.? He’s so new, he has no idea what’s going on or why.? But he’s surviving.
The mission is a success.? But Manning isn’t released.? His commander was injured, and evacuated.? The 88′s were silenced, only to be replaced by German tanks.
And SGT Manning is promoted.? LT Manning.? In three days he’s gone from Private to Sergeant to Lieutenant.? Which he doesn’t want.? He wants to live, he wants out of there.
He’s to lead his platoon the next day, when the Battalion goes “all in” to retake the river crossing.? All in.? Everything.? Win, or be destroyed.? Take and hold the river crossing, or reasonably expect all of the soldiers to die trying.
Manning views his higher commanders not as leaders, but as managers.? They aren’t moving forward, taking the risk of being shot or shelled.? They’re sending guys like him out there, like pawns moved on a game board.? It might be OK to move around pieces like this in the business world, but when you’re talking about a gamble that can lead to the death of hundreds of men, Manning knows that this should be a decision made carefully.? And it sure doesn’t seem to be.
With Sanderson and two others, he decides to do what he knows needs to be done.? Instead of waiting for the morning, and stepping off the line with the rest of the other men for what he knows is certain death, he realizes that they need to slip across the lines at night and take out those tanks.? For their own survival, for the survival of the other men.? Stupid, dangerous, potentially fatal, but the right thing to do.? And they do it.
The scene of Manning picking his way through the minefield and clipping wires brought back memories for me.? I can remember doing the same thing in Georgia years ago, during training.? Crawling on my belly, poking the softened earth, looking for the mines and just about crapping myself when I found them, all the while the smoke drifting over the minefield and wire obstacles to conceal what we were up to.? And praying that the smoke would last long enough.? Which it never did.? Because when it ended, down would come the (simulated) mortar rounds, close enough to throw dirt on us and close enough to scare the hell out of me.? Laying on your back, cutting the wire on the far side, covered in sweat and dirt and mud and stench, wondering if you cleared a path wide enough for the others to follow through while knowing that you really did.? Just let them make it through this.
Yes, these movies can be hard to watch sometimes.
Our movie ends with Sanderson humping it back to the rear, Manning on his back, wounded.? Bleeding all over the place.? Hoping that they’ll make it.? Trying to hang on.? Hang on.? Hang on.? And finally realizing that he is going to die.
I liked this movie.? I will tell others to see it.? Someday, not soon, I will watch it again.? Someday.
