Second Chances

Chapter 2-Death

Hey guys! So I'm really thankful for all the support that I got for this story :) I am definintely going to continue this :)  I was really surprised that this story made the What's Hot List and it was because of my wonderful fans! Thank you guys so much again :)

Well without further ado....here is the next chapter :D

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Chapter 2-Death  

It hadn't been easy to walk the streets of Amsterdam.  Everywhere I turned there was nothing but silence and misery.  There were wooden boards boarded up on the houses that I passed by.  There was a sense of dread in the air and I felt the chill of it on my back.  The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I felt uneasy walking the empty streets alone. 

This is how it was for the next three years.  The Nazi's had raided the city and destroyed the town that was my home.  Many people in town were afraid to come out of their house and into civilization.  Eventually, some people in town started to live their lives as normal as they could.  My family was not one of them.  A month had passed since I left them but I heard that they had moved away along with Janie and Grant to America.  When I heard the news I rushed back to the house to see if it was true.  Everything was gone.  There was nothing in the cellar that was left for me.  I felt like everything I knew was gone.  Everything that I had grown up to believe in had been shattered by one man.  It was that day that I vowed to help take Hitler's army down along with the forces that opposed him.

It wasn't until America got involved in the war in 1942.  The American people were so distraught by the bombing of Pearl Harbor that President Roosevelt did not hesitate to enter America into the war.  That was my chance to help fight alongside people who wanted to see Hitler's reign end.  When the American troops came into Amsterdam, it was a blessing to have the city guarded from any attempt to seize it.  I ran into an American soldier a few days after they had been stationed there.  It was then that I had been drafted to serve for the American forces.  They inspected my physical appearance and capability and a few days later I was approved.  They issued me a uniform, gear, and weapons that I would have with me at all times.  I was told to report to my commander and shortly afterwards he assigned me to a unit.

At first, I was stationed as a guard to roam and watch the city for threats.  The only threats that had occurred were ones that involved bombs being dropped down on the city.  There wasn’t much that the soldiers on the ground could do but up in the air, there was a separate battle going on.  There were missiles being launched towards each other’s planes that caused the planes to plunge down to earth.  They were like firecrackers in the air but instead of bringing joy, it brought dread and death. 

My job then turned to aiding those who had been hurt by the attacks on the city.  I took the ones who were injured to the hospital and they received medical treatment from the few available nurses.  The hospital wasn’t in great shape and it barely had room for all the people who were being cared for.  But it was all that these people had.  When I’d go and take someone to be treated, I saw fellow soldiers that had been injured by the Nazis.  Some of them were unconscious and lay still in the bed with a ghostly pallor.  Some had lost a limb, a leg or an arm, during the battle and were now stretched out on the bed with grim faces.  I even saw children who had burns all over their bodies that were caused by the bombings. 

The atmosphere of the place was full of dread and death.  You could smell the decay from the bodies that had recently died but no one had moved them.  The beds were aligned in rows of forty-five beds across to twenty-five beds down.  There were narrow walk ways but most of the space had to be left for the hospital beds and the station where all the supplies were held.  There were children who cried for a lost mother or father.  Many American soldiers wrote letters to their families back home and I watched the nurses take their letters and put them in a sack to be collected.  I admired the nurses for their courage at seeing all the death around them.  They didn’t realize how much the soldiers appreciated their console and aid.  When the soldiers were able and well they were discharged and told to return to their unit for further instruction.  It was never over.  We needed every able soldier out their fighting against Hitler’s army and that meant that there was barely any time for rest and recovery.