Second in a series on war veterans

The 19-year-old Marine dug through volcanic black beach sand, carving out a foxhole to protect himself from a terrifying barrage of Japanese artillery. He abandoned his rifle when its muzzle embedded in the choking sand, rendering it useless, and picked up another from a nearby dead infantryman. His most pressing thought: survival.

In this column over the past three decades I’ve mentioned five times a novel of warning, José Gironella’s The Cypresses Believe in God. Sadly, it’s out of print: Since my last recommendation I’ve learned the least expensive used copy you can buy costs $64, which is steep even for 997 pages. So, as a public service, here are key quotations from the book set in 1931-1936 Spain, as that country polarized its way to a civil war.

The first Sunday after Labor Day is National Grandparents Day, which has its own official flower: the forget-me-not. If your grandparents are still alive, have you thanked them? If they’re deceased, do you honor them?

For Christmas 1961 my mother bought me a nun’s suit from the St. Anthony Messenger magazine. 

To St. Joseph’s Church I would make my pilgrimage, pry open the heavy wooden portals; dip fingers in holy water fonts; part the stained glass doors across the narthex; genuflect when reaching the communion rail; kneel before flickering votive candles; and beg with the earnestness of a 9-year-old zealot that the impassive Virgin oblige me with the sign I sought—a raised eyelid, the slightest finger movement. 

She declined.

In 1765, when the American Colonies erupted over the Stamp Act, King George didn’t get it. Weren’t these subjects well treated? Did they not prosper from benign neglect? And this taxation they were incensed about was meant to cover the expense of defending them. What was their problem?

How could you ever lose the mental image of a Nazi tumbling from his tank, burning to death next to you? Or an American soldier kissing a little French girl’s cheek as joyous young women dance, celebrating victory in Europe? 

Baseball is starting up again and COVID-19 is still throwing fastballs. This isn’t the first time such good and bad news coexisted: Johnny Smith, professor of sports history at Georgia Tech, is co-author (with historian Randy Roberts) of the excellent War Fever: Boston, Baseball, and America in the Shadow of the Great War (Basic, 2020). Here are edited excerpts from our April interview.