Shower of Frogs: departing from Casablanca (Chapter 2)
"Stigall." Birdwell?" "Get going on your slit trench," he said.
"Look, Sergeant; there hasn't been an air raid in Casablanca for a month," I said.
"Never mind that. And take down your tent and line it up with Hurley's. Get it in a straight line."
"OK, Sergeant," I said. He left, and I thought, what a helluva target all these tents make lined up so neatly. But then, on the other hand, there aren't any planes. So why dig a slit trench. It took me three days between details to penetrate six inches into the rock-infested earth outside Casablanca. On the fourth evening I was mercifully rescued and sent on an advance party.
In the morning I left the out-of-line tent to Leonard, kicked some rocks back into the hole, and drove north from Casablanca.
About Me
- SP
- Bill Stigall was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1911. He became interested in the theater and graduated from the University of Illinois before becoming a director in the Chicago Park District theater prior to World War II. He and his brother Jack enlisted together following Pearl Harbor -- Jack went to Navy and the Pacific as a pharmacists mate; Bill to the 82nd Airborne (as shown in the photo) ... the North Africa, Italy, and D-Day campaigns. He was captured by the Germans and was a POW until the end of the war in Europe. After the war he moved to Lincoln College in Lincoln, Illinois where he taught theater and a self-develooped course on western civilization. That's also where he met my mother, who became his wife, and me. Later on they moved to Scarborough, New York where they lived until he died in 2001, shortly after celebrating his 90th birthday in Paris. Besides "Shower of Frogs" there is also a compendium of his writings called "I Couldn't Be Better" and a genealogy. The "Shower of Frogs" can be purchased from the maker of this blog via Amazon.