Turning Point - Mental Toughness and Foxhole Buddies

Clancy told me a story about himself. It is one he has told others. It has been published a few times in various books. The story is straight forward enough, but is also remarkably telling in several ways. It took place at Bastogne. Clancy was in his foxhole with his buddy Mike Massaconi. They were enduring yet another artillery barrage. There were times the shelling would be intermittent, and, of course, unpredictable, but the randomness even of lighter shelling would get to be unnerving. It was one of several elements that prevented any real sleep for a soldier, and that was the intent—to keep your enemy on edge. This was a more intense barrage.

Having already been on the line for several days during one of the coldest winters in recent memory, dressed in nothing more than his M-42s, an M-43 field jacket, and a towel around his neck, he had no sleep for days, little food, and no warmth. This barrage was becoming a knife’s edge of an experience. Attrition, not just in the current exposure, but of the months in combat, played into things as well.

Clancy was only sixteen years old when he had jumped into Normandy just six months before. Like many, he had lied about his age to get in the Army and volunteered for the paratroopers. He was big for his age so he got away with it. He had been wounded—a bayonet to the gut—in Carentan. He had turned a corner to throw a grenade and literally ran into it. Finding himself face to face with an equally shocked German soldier, Clancy pulled the trigger on his rifle first, killing his assailant. He healed from his physical wounds sufficiently to return to the fight in Market Garden. There he was wounded again, this time by shrapnel in the leg a within a few days of his 17th birthday. There were other wounds--the less visible ones that marred the thoughts and emotions of a man. He lost a friend at the now famous “Crossroads” battle. He would lose another in a few short weeks—one whose name would be on his lips in the last hour of his own life.

Wounded but alive, Clancy had now survived to his 17th year. He recovered from his new wound to return to his unit a relatively short time before they were called into one of the most unforgiving battles of the war in Europe—the battle of the Bulge. For him, it was the battle for Bastogne. History tells how these men went into combat ill equipped to fight the enemy and the weather. Clancy was no exception.

Take a moment and imagine yourself as Clancy. Imagine being cold—very cold—out in the snow for days with only summer weight clothes cold; being hungry—really hungry—not just missing one meal, but lacking any substantive food for days. Imagine having as little sleep for as long, and not just in a bad camping situation, but finding yourself in a “frozen Hell”—on the frontline of Bastogne—of what would become one of the most intense battles in the Bulge. Intermittent, unpredictable shelling, infantry and armor supported attacks, night time patrols dotted the landscape of your existence.

Physically, the landscape was equally gruesome. Frozen bodies of the battle dead of both sides and battle debris littered the forest and fields and roads; trees that more and more resembled splintered matchsticks stood above them in silent testament of the destructive power of the barrages as much as the frozen dead. Sure, as Clancy said, you would catch a wink or two of sleep between. But there was always the potential of death and the accompanying tension. There was no such thing as rest.

It is hard for me to fathom the physical, mental, and emotional stress imposed on a young man who had already seen months of front line combat. This is the backdrop of Clancy’s personal experience and surroundings as he withstood yet another barrage. His childhood had helped him cope he told me. It made him tough. But the cumulative attritional effects of battle were showing themselves as they were on almost every man.

So there was Clancy—young, but battle hardened—in the snow smothered and shell pitted forests of Bastogne, in his foxhole, his friend Mike right next to him. As the shells came in Clancy noticed a bird on the side of his foxhole, chirping away. He attempted to show “Mikey” the bird. He elbowed Mike in the arm. Mike looked over and realized what was happening. He reached over and put his arms around Clancy and hugged him. Mike had been described as a worldly sort of man from Massachusetts--a man that would call Clancy, several years his junior, “meathead” in their first encounters. Now he was holding Clancy in his arms, recognizing that perilous edge he was on and trying to lean him towards the safer side. That brought Clancy back to reality. Clancy himself later said there was no telling what he might have done otherwise. Tellingly, Clancy had mentioned how the shelling in the Veghel had an effect on him months earlier and he spoke of the intensity of some of the shelling in the early days of Bastogne. He was not alone in this sentiment.

Clancy went on to fight the rest of the battles of Bastogne, and, though wounded several times, saw the campaign to its end. It was a turning point in the hardening of this man and a test of his endurance. He went on to fight on what he described as tougher battles in Korea. Bastogne haunted him for years but he never let it take his enjoyment of winter or Christmas away. He even found strength to even joke about it when talking to me on the subject.

I wondered how long it was before Clancy was willing to mention to anyone what had happened there that day. Who would even understand? I thought too what might have happened if he had no “foxhole buddy” there that day…

In popular culture, hallucination has periodically been portrayed as a sign of weakness. In Hollywood depictions in films in the past, it is portrayed as the breaking point--one of no return--where the man is perceived as mentally weak and removed from combat (or removes himself from combat) and of whom we never hear again. In recent decades, it has become more commonly known that sleep deprivation alone will cause a relatively high percentage of people to hallucinate. It is somewhat common occurrence during certain training phases of several elite military units. They also add other stressors to the mix such as cold and physical exhaustion. Add to it all the other stresses--the attrition of months of combat and an intense artillery barrage, no food, the imminent and constant potential for death or painful maiming wounds and it is enough to test the mind and will of the strongest of men.

Clancy did not remain in that state of mind, nor did he ever return to it. He tasted of it and now knew what it was. He never forgot it. It bothered him for a long time, but, whatever impact it had—if any doubt or fear, he did not let that stop him or affect his duty as a soldier. Instead of it being a breaking point or a collapse, it was a mental turning point for him as tempering of steel. Where the mind goes the body follows. For some it might give pause to continued service, but Clancy took that and put it in his “tool box.” He went on to be a very effective soldier with many years of subsequent service.

Clancy had come to the brink of breaking, and, though the thoughts of those days haunted him for a long time, he did not succumb to them. In the short term, he was able to stay the course and keep fighting under desperately difficult circumstances and stay on the front lines though subsequently wounded several times. In the long term, he would fight a drinking problem for a number of years before conquering it as well. In combat and whenever on duty, however, it was a tool in the tool box.

Often, there is greater learning and strengthening in stumbling than in easy success. Rising from ashes, you emerge refined like the silver tried seven times. Clancy had been refined by his experience there and I believe it helped him immeasurably when he engaged the enemy in future encounters. Can you make a breaking point your turning point to become stronger? Though never faced with such ordeals as he was at his age, I hope to do the same with those hardest things in my life. If I am blessed, I will have a “foxhole buddy” to make that turning point.

(Originally posted on facebook January 1, 2015.)

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