Good Conduct

Red Cross Nurse, World War II by Haddon Sundbloom

Last night Grandma showed me Grandpa’s Good Conduct Medal—it was a round, gold disk—kind of heavy—with an eagle on it, and it said, “Good Conduct,” and I thought that was awesome, I mean, my grandpa actually got a medal in the World War II, so I decided to ask him about it, but he said, oh, that’s nothing, it’s just what they give you if you stay in the Army for more than three years, so I said, but you did fight the bad guys, right?, and then he told me that he had been in a tank battalion, and then then, of course, I got real interested cause, I mean, he was in a tank with a tank gun and all that real Army stuff, so he got out this little book he had from the Army—I could tell it was really old because it had, like, stains on it and it was coming apart—and he showed me in the back where his name was listed with all the other guys who were in the battalion, and it said that he was a Corporal for “intelligence” and “reconnaissance,” and then we looked at photos in the book together, which were tiny and in black and white, but it was still really cool cause I could see tanks like the one he was in and guys with guns with smoke coming out of them, and blown-up bridges and prisoners with their hands above their hands, but also pictures of guys doing regular things, like eating around a campfire, doing laundry, playing baseball, and even some guy getting a haircut, and at first that made it seem sort of like sleep-away camp, but then I started to think: I know my grandpa made it through the war because, well, he’s alive now, but what about the other guys in the book, like, for example, what about the guy getting the haircut?

by Nina Zolotow

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