"One night, after a fruitless patrol to engage the Germans, a small group of junior officers got together in a large tent. Six of us sat on the ground drinking local wine and bullshitting. I was the only American. We had no electricity, no fire, only one small kerosene lamp that spread a dim glow, the light dying before it reached the corners of the tent.
We sat there giving coarse opinions on the war. We cursed the enemy and we cursed Roosevelt for not sending enough supplies to the Brits. I cursed British food, which consisted primarily of tinned bully beef beer and inedible biscuits. We gave everybody hell - Patton, Eisenhower, Churchill, Montgomery, Alexander - we didn't miss anybody except ourselves. We were the only good guys in the war, serving at the mercy of fools.
As we talked, it became obvious that these officers still thought they would never make it home. They thought the war would not get better, because it wasn't getting any better for them at that particular moment, and hadn't since 1939, when they first got into it. They felt the Germans dominated the air space over Africa and the Mediterranean. Their vehicles could move at all in the daytime without Stukas or Messerschmitts attacking them.
But to the south, where I had been, the Allies had already started to gain control of the air. I saw more and more Allied planes overhead in southern Tunisia.
So I said, "I think we've got air superiority now, and I think we whipped the Germans down where I came from."
But the Brits, sitting at the tail end of their supply lines, felt beaten by their long struggle with the enemy.
I tried to cheer them up. "From what I hear," I said, "the Russians are doing better on their front, and it looks like we're starting to turn the war in the Pacific. And I can tell you folks that when I left the States, American factories were producing everything we need. It's only a matter of getting it to us."
We'd been drinking and talking for two hours when the entrance spread open. A trim, uniformed man stepped into the light, closed the flaps, and stood just inside the tent.
The other men got up and saluted. I was in an American combat uniform; I didn't have to salute this guy. A lieutenant nudged me with his foot. I stood, looked closer, and recognized General Alexander from pictures I'd seen. As commander of the British 18th Army Group, he reported directly to General Eisenhower. I saluted smartly.
The general said, "You're an American?"
"Yes sir. Oklahoma."
"I've been to Fort Still," he said, and made a slight motion with his hand. "Sit down, gentlemen."
We offered him a drink. Sitting cross-legged before us, in a tent close enough to the enemy to get hit by their artillery, General Alexander took a small swing from our bottle and looked at each of the young officers gathered around him.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I've been standing outside your tent for several minutes, and I'e hard you lace into the entire Allied command. I can understand it. I was a young officer myself at one time." Then he looked at me and said, "Young man, you're really the only optimistic one in this group."
And he sat and discussed the war with us. He stayed for half an hour, an extraordinary time for a general to stop and talk with a bunch of junior officers. That's what makes a good general, I think. Listening and having experienced what we were dealing wit.
The general stood, "I want you to remember this," he said. "If you other men think it's bad on this side, and the American lieutenant here thinks it's getting better, then it is getting better on our side. Gentlemen, the Boche are beginning to lose this war. If you think it's bad on our side, just be glad you're not on theirs."
I never forgot what General Alexander told us that night. I gave my men the same pep talk during hard combat later, when some of them doubted the outcome of a battle or the war. "Well, look," I'd say,"If you think it's bad over here, look how much more artillery we're firing at them than they are firing at us. Look at how many more airplanes we've got.
So I had great respect for Alexander and he turned out to be, I think, one of the better generals of the war. Maybe my meeting him had something to do with that opinion. Every general made mistakes during the war. Every commander, every platoon leader - we all made mistakes. But General Alexander inspired me, and I know I was a better officer for having met him."
Pgs 69-71 of Capt. Charlie Scheffel's Crack! and Thump.