14بخش

I was praying the whole time.

I just kept praying, “Lord, please help me get one more.”

When I got this, I said, “Lord, please help me get one more.”

I would say anyone is wrong to try to compromise somebody’s conviction.

I don’t care whether it’s army or what it is.

When you own a conviction, that is not a joke.

That’s what you are.

Even though I said those things to him in regard to carrying a rifle,

then he would never be by my damn side at all unless he had a rifle.

But then, in the long run,

finding out that he was one of the bravest persons alive.

And then to have him end up saving my life

was the irony of the whole thing.

Blood had run down into the fella’s face and eyes.

He was laying there just groaning and calling for a medic.

I took water from my canteen, got some bandage, and I washed his face.

And when I, was washing his eyes, his eyes came open.

Man, he just lit up.

He says, “I thought I was blind.”

And if I hadn’t got anything more out of the war

than that smile he gave me, I’d have been well repaid.