Herman Bottcher,
Summa Cum Laude
By
Sgt. John Rossen
How far is it, please
From Landsberg, Germany
(Which the Red Army took
this morning)
To a six-foot-plot
Of the lush soil of Leyte Isle?
How far from
We
were there at the command
Post
On
a hill near Caspe
When
the CO asked for volunteers
Hardly
a chance in ten to
make it, he said
And
you and Jim Ruskin stepped forward
How far from that blood-soaked Caspe road
That gulley of death at Pandols
Those shell-torn vineyards before Gandesa
Those waters of the Ebro in July 38
And Sierre
Caballs in September –
From these how far
To a foxhole facing Buna Mission?
At
the bivouac near Falset
Gathered
round an evening
campfire
You
gave us a political pep-talk
Speaking
of German anti-Nazis
And
the world-struggle against
the Fascist
beast
What
you said filled minds and
hearts
With
the iron solidarity of
humankind
Herman Bottcher
reckoned the distances
well
And his is an “A” forever and ever
In the subject of anti-Fascist
Geometry
The Graduation Exercise
Went off with a bang
And he was the Honor Student of
the Class
Graduating suddenly
With the speed of shrapnel from a
Jap
mortar
At dawn of the last day of 1944)
When
word of Munich
reached us
Some
cursed bitterly
And
flung down their rifles
Many
sank to the ground
As
for you, Butch
Only
the muscles around mouth
and eyes
Tightened
and set
And
more grimly did you bend
Over
the pistol you were cleaning
Yes, he passed his exam with flying
colors;
Now comes the test for us the living
The Final Exam for us the undergrads
Two billion students in a hundred
million classrooms,
Located in many places on the face
of the Earth
As for instance in the bitter cold
of the Oder and
And in the stinking heart of jungle
islands
In the ruins of Stalingrad and Warsaw
And in the fine drawing rooms of
And could not one go so far as to
say
There are classrooms, too, on Pennsylvania Avenue
On Downing Street, and in
the Kremlin Square?)
We
heard you say once to a frightened Spanish youngster
“A
real anti-Fascist must know how to die when necessary”
You
were a real anti-Fascist, Butch
And
you knew how to die when it became necessary.
Here’s the problem:
Compute the distance, militarily and
politically
Using the formula of Teheran)
From
* * * *
When the Graduation Day comes
For all of humanity
And all the distance have
been rightly reckoned
It would be well remembered
What a great teacher of Geometry
Was the anti-Fascist Herman Bottcher.
Camp Luna, New Mexico.
16 September 1945