Naples: Notes

Chapter 8:

Hunger and poverty are almost synonymous with Naples. Even for those of us whose background was urban and who knew the depression, to whom "slums and Hoovervilles" were a part of our
youth and who had seen and smelled North Africa and Sicily, there was no preparation for the human and sorrowful sights of Naples.

It was one thing to witness the relative static nature of a slum and of the impoverished conditions of the early thirties. It was quite another experience to be literally touched by the swarming crowds, by the frantic, aggressive, and vocal hunger of Naples. Combine this emotional and physical anguish, this outpouring of suffering, with the physical destruction; mix in the elements of unexpected time bombs and the knowledge that many of the men who today walked the streets were yesterday hooting at you or giving some degree of comfort to the rodents of the Wehrmacht; add to this our own personal irritants stemming from military existence and current environment, our own displacement from the things we cared about, the uncertainty of our daily activities-put all these together and one can begin to understand the mixed emotions that rose from our stay in Naples.

...

About this time Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau visited the city of Naples and the front lines. He returned with a list of atrocities to be shown the president. So what? Morgenthau was acting
like a little boy who had heard a few dirty words and wanted his father to do something about it. Political eyewash. War is lawful slaughter or it isn't anything. Life magazine said: "None of this [the
atrocities] is the job of a self-respecting army." Neither American civilians nor American soldiers know the enemy.

Also about this time, five senators made a pilgrimage to Italy. One wondered what in hell they were doing so far from Washington. There was enough of a mess at home. If the senators would just
take care of their mess and let us take care of our mess, how nice it would be. Both this and Morgenthau's action simply galled a soldier.

...

For all the beauty of Italy, and it deserves all praise for it is lovely beyond poetry, nothing is perfect and some things are not like home. October came and went in Naples; November seemed more like October in the United States. But it finally failed and dissolved into coldness and drabness; then I thought of a missed American autumn. I could not hold it back any longer. The massive
irritants of army life and local environment compounded into loneliness.

No man escapes loneliness. I discovered there are several kinds, such as social, intellectual, and emotional. Weeks racing into months, minutes piling up into hours, and no words spoken about
those things that were once as common as coffee. They were all dammed up, rushing against an impassable wall. Is there anyone who reads Keats in this world? Has no man heard of Mozart? Is
there no woman in the world who speaks your native tongue? Is all the world one color - olive drab? Are all things and places in the world infected with dirt and disease, and are they all gutted like
half-burned candles? Is there cleanliness someplace, dishes, sheets? Is there light on the streets and leaves in the gutters? Are there bonfires with smoke rising higher than a house? Is there a child who
will smile at you without also begging from you? Is there a warm-colored moon in a smoky sky making pumpkins' shadows twice their size? Are there red apples in great barrels, corn in tall cribs? Is there an autumn wind that can infect the spirit with the wilds of Halloween? Do lost things come home in autumn, and are new things found in the Renaissance that is October? Yes, over and over,
year after year, and they shall be found again and the great Spirit Wind shall blow again, fields shall yield again and music sing and lights light and the world grow clean. A dam shall burst and a man
shall be free again.