[The following takes place during World War II.]
Harlon Block had gone home to east Texas for what he, too, believed was the last time. On his furlough in the booming citrus country, Harlon did some things that Belle and Ed and his friends would never have conceived. He took long walks in the swampy fields near the Rio Grande, the mosquito-laden fields. He was trying to catch malaria. It wasn’t cowardice. Harlon was hoping that the sickness would be a sign from God that he would not have to go back into battle and continue to kill his fellowman.
But the malarial mosquitoes never found his flesh. God was not going to let Harlon Block off the hook that easily. When he realized that, Harlon began to prepare some of those close to him for his eventual death.
Not everyone. He spared Belle and Ed [his parents]. But he told it to his football buddy Leo Ryan’s young wife, Jean. He met Jean in her office at the Sunny Glen Orphanage, associated with the Church of Christ; Jean was executive secretary to the director there. He took her to a café in town. Over coffee, he told her simply: “I don’t think I’ll be coming back next time. I’ve had my chances and I think my number will be up next time.”
After this, Harlon started telling several other friends and relatives as well.
Catherine Pierce was one. Harlon visited his special girl one afternoon during his furlough; he looked her up at the boarding school in Keene, Texas, where she was completing her senior year. Catherine noticed something different about Harlon right away. He was a little thinner than she remembered, but that wasn’t it. He was subdued. But just under that careful surface she could sense strong emotions. She recalled that going back to the Pacific was very much on his mind that sunlit, awkward afternoon. He loved her, but his message was not about her “waiting for him.”
He surprised her as he softly said, “I don’t think I’ll be coming back, Catherine.”
”He was a different person,” Catherine told me. “Before he went to war he had been happy, with lots of enthusiasm. Now he was quiet, like something was weighing on him.
”I tried to encourage him. I said, ‘Oh, Harlon, don’t be silly. Nothing is going to happen to you.’ But he felt differently. He said with conviction, ‘Catherine, I just have this strong sense that I won’t be coming back.’ “
Source:
Bradley, James, and Ron Powers. “Call of Duty.” Flags of Our Fathers. Bantam Dell, a Division of Random House, Inc., 2006. 92-3. Print.
Further Reading:
Well did he survive?
I need closure dammit!