The Deserter
John's account of a Kentucky newcomer at the Amethyst Mine known to him and Gavin Skinner only as "Sandy" — an eighteen-year-old draftee who deserted basic training, then assumed his own cousin's identity to re-enlist after the cousin was disqualified from the Navy. Under his new name, Sandy fought through some of the heaviest fighting in Italy and went on to the Normandy landings, only to spend his postwar years in Creede always one step ahead of the military police still hunting the deserter he'd once been.
The end of World War II saw an influx of ex-soldiers and sailors looking for work in the silver camp of Creede. Several had heard of the town from fellows they came in contact with in military service and vowed to visit while others were just drifting from place to place for the hell of it and to unwind from the fear and uncertainties of war.
At this time, Gavin Skinner and I were working in the Amethyst Mine three levels below the haulage level and a newcomer was helping lower supplies to us via a vertical winze. We knew him only as "Sandy," that he was from Kentucky, and he had served in the Army. Over the course of a month, we became better acquainted and began drinking together after shift's end. I loved his back hills way of talking and his stories of hunting in Kentucky. It was inevitable that war stories would enter the conversations and one night when we were all a little overloaded, Sandy showed his Purple Heart medal to the group. It was worn and dirty from being carried around in his pockets but he was proud of it. It took many more beer drinking sessions for him to bare his soul to us and the full story to come out, but it still touches me.
Sandy had been drafted into the Army when he was eighteen years old. The sudden transformation from a mountain boy's life to basic training with a barrack full of strangers was more than he could handle and he deserted. He found his way home and hid out. He was afraid every waking minute, certain he would be found, and he knew the penalty for desertion in wartime was death by firing squad. He had a cousin, younger, who had tried to enlist in the Navy and failed the examination. Sandy kept in touch with his relatives and upon learning of his cousin's disability, he assumed his identity. His uncle drove him to a distant city where he enlisted in the Army. It was better this time; he adjusted well on losing his nagging fear as a deserter and he was shipped overseas where his unit was involved in some of the heaviest fighting in Italy where he was wounded. He recovered from the wound in time for the Normandy landings and distinguished himself on the road to victory in Europe.
He returned to Kentucky, found out military personnel had been in many times looking for a deserter and decided he had better keep moving, eventually ending up in Colorado where he learned jobs were available in Creede. He was a good dependable worker and it came as a surprise when our foreman, Glenn Archer, told us that military policemen had inquired at the office about Sandy and escorted him out of town. We never saw him again and never learned if his later heroic service had overturned the desertion charges.