“I don’t care about that,” Tony said. “I want to get fighting. I don’t like this sittin’ around. I thought this North African invasion would really be the works. When we shipped out from home, I knew it was something big. But what have we done?”
“Tough fight when we landed back of Casablanca,” Donnelly said. “That was a good scrap.”
“I Want to Get to Fighting,” Tony Said
“Sure, it started off fine,” Tony agreed. “But then we just sat for three weeks. Sure, we moved forward from one base to another as the ground troops went forward. But no fighting. No parachuting. Nothing. Then today we thought it had come at last. But it was nothing. Just a practice jump.”
“When we reach Tunisia,” Dick said, “we’ll run into some real fighting. By the way, Tony, I suppose you’ve thought some about how you’ll feel fighting Italians. Will you be so anxious to fight them?”
“Well, I’m an American,” Tony said. “I was born in America. I’m fighting for America. But my folks—they were Italian. And their friends, lots of ’em come from Italy. And I’ve got cousins and uncles and aunts there, even visited them once for almost a year when I was about sixteen. But it’s not them I’m fighting. They don’t want this war at all. They’re fightin’ just because somebody is makin’ ’em do it. That’s why they’ve been so lousy during this war. Some people think I must get upset when Italians always run away in battle. No—I like it. It doesn’t mean they’re cowards or bad soldiers. It just means they don’t want to fight this war.”
“Well—I don’t want to fight, really,” Dick said. “And neither do most Americans. What about that?”