The execution of Pvt. Donny Schaaf . . . Age 8

I captured him, so it was my job to hang him, Joe said.

 As the rope snapped tight around Donny’s neck, my stomach and throat fused... I remember thinking, “This isn’t right.” His face turned blotchy, varying between red on his forehead to green and yellow around his mouth and nose.

 He squeezed his eyes together, making deep furrows on his forehead. As luck would have it, Joe picked the end of the limb from which to string the rope instead of the crook where the limb joins the tree. Donny felt the branch give.  He began bounding up and down each time his toes touched the ground. With each upward bounce, he sucked in little squirts of air. He made little puff-puff noises, mixed with a guttural grunt when he exhaled. For some reason, he couldn’t open his mouth.

 He struggled to free his hands, which were locked behind his back by a pair of cheap handcuffs from a child’s Mr. Policeman Kit from the early l940’s. They had a little ratchet gizmo that held them closed. They could be opened simply by pressing the spring-loaded release button. Donny knew this because, being cousins, we shared our toys. Now, as his body turned slowly at the end of a hangman’s rope, I could see his fingers groping desperately for the release button. A big, white fleck of broken thumb nail flipped up like a flag of surrender as he clawed at the cuffs.

 They held.

 The rope held.

 His tip-toe dance of death was all that was between him and the end.

 I was glued to the spot.  Embarrassed at watching my cousin bounce and sputter, I turned my eyes upward and watched the tree limb twitch and jerk in the flower-scented morning.

 The spot we had chosen as the site of the execution of Private Donald Schaaf, Age 8, a regular trooper in the Headquarters Brigade of the West Second Street Irregulars, was at the edge the driveway beside my house. A large old lilac bush shouldered up to the tree.  Its overflowing foliage made a perfect hideout..

 It was near the end of the World War II . We were so tired of the War.  Donny and I couldn’t find anybody in the neighborhood who wanted to play war that morning. There was a time when all we had to do was shout at the top of our lungs, “READY FOR WAR!!!”  It was a battle cry to which every kid in the neighborhood within hearing distance responded

 But it was getting more and more difficult to muster the troops. Supreme Allied Headquarters -- my back yard -- had begun to look like those pictures in the paper of empty supply dumps in Britain.  Even play-war had its price. Like those empty dumps overseas, we were running out of the resource that made us who we were.

 But, Donny and I kept the faith. We soldiered on. Often we were the only two out there on the field of honor. It was difficult because traditionally, we fought on the same side. When we went to war alone, one of us had to be the good guy, and one of us had to be the bad guy. Another neat rule, when there were only two of us, was that we could get killed and come back to life again and again until we tired of the game.

 That’s how things went that morning. Even better, one of the neighborhood big kids, named Joe, had taken an interest. He was three, maybe four years older than us, which made him about 12 or 13. Joe used to ridicule our childish games. He scorned us openly without fear of the fake bullets we fired at him.

 But today, for some reason, he took an interest in us. He nodded approvingly at our feints and probes, at our cunning and daring, and he cheered when one of us killed the other.

 Joe’s sudden interest and approval felt good. It spurred us to new inventive heights of warfare. Donny, always an acrobat when it came to taking a bullet in the chest and sliding headlong down a dirt pile, showed off by tumbling, sprawling face up in such a way that one eye stared vacantly at the cloudless sky. I, on the other hand, was good at spinning belly-flops with a bone-jarring thud.

 Joe stood at the edge of the battlefield to cheer us on. The battle raged through all corners of my yard:-- the old Lilly pond, empty, now, and in disrepair since the war began; the alley-way behind the garage, the chicken house dad built to produce meat and eggs, the thick growth of Concord grapes and vines along the fence; an old weeping willow tree in the far corner, and, of course, when mom wasn’t looking, her giant peony bushes. The garage was off limits. In fact, it was padlocked. That’s where dad stored the gasoline he pirated from used cars at his auto dealership.

 “Might blow up,” he said.

 And then, there was the old standby lilac bush near the tree in the corner. This time of day, it was shady and cool. I suspect that’s why Donny chose it. Somehow, he made it to the bush without my seeing him. I was crawling on my belly to known hideouts in my backyard when I looked up to see Joe jerking his head toward the sweet-smelling bush.

 He saw that I understood, and something happened to his eyes.  I wasn’t sure what it meant, but Joe seemed to know.   I raised up on my elbows, as if to fire from the prone position. But Joe shook his head and made prodding motions with the forefingers of both hands. I understood. He wanted me to capture Donny.

 It seemed like a good idea, so I boldly strode toward the bush, gun at the ready.

 “C’mon outa there. You’re a prisoner of war,” I proclaimed. I remember wondering vaguely what I was going to do with a prisoner. Guard him, to be sure. But that effectively ended the game. With only two of us playing, if one had to guard the other, the war over.

 Still in a quandary,  I motioned Donny to raise his hands in the air.

 He sensed the dilemma, too, because a look of uncertainty crossed his face.

 I motioned Donny to move ahead of me toward the stockade -- the empty lilly pond. As he did, he reached down for his gun. In this situation, the deal was that I would guard him for a minute or so, and then he’d make a break for it and escape. He got to take his gun along so that he would have a weapon when he fled.

 That’s when Joe interrupted. He chided me for letting the prisoner touch a weapon.

 “Prisoners,” he said with great authority, “should be executed.”

 Well, there it was. After all, he was older. And he said it like he knew what he was talking about. It was the first time anyone that old or with such an air of authority had bothered to tell lowly soldiers how it ought to be.

 Still, a curious twinge rolled up my back. EXECUTION? That was unheard of in the games we played.  Men fought and died on the field with great honor. Even the dreaded Bosch. Bloodthirsty as they were, died like men. And, if by some great tide of fortune, we managed to capture all the Germans who fought against us, they were marched off to the brig. A couple of minutes of taunting and belittling, and they were let go, and a new game was under way.

 I shook my head as I looked at Joe, trying to understand what was going on.

 “Look, I’m the General . . . okay?” he said, placing his hands on his hips. It made him look exasperated, and adult. “And the General says execution!”

 So, I raised my gun. Donny, sensing that he was about to make the supreme sacrifice, was preparing to hurl his tiny body through space as the bullet ripped into him. I could tell he was about to outdo himself this time. He was not only dying for the cause, but because someone in authority said that’s how it was to be.

 I took my time sighting on Donny.  Donny, on the other hand, used this time to stand a straighter, square his shoulders, place his hands at his sides and await the particularly nasty “P-kewwwyyy” sound I would make. The intensity of tone I imparted to the sound of my gun firing would tell Donny how serious the shot was going to be, how hard it would strike him, how viciously he must fling himself down.

 I was preparing my most deadly P-kewwyyy-sound when Joe interrupted.

 “That’s not how you do it,” he said. “Prisoners of war are hung,” he announced.

 What happened next, even all these years later, is still something of a blur. From nowhere,  Joe produced a thin rope.  In a flash, it was over the limb. The noose was already in the end of the rope, as though prepared in advance.

 On Joe’s orders, I removed the Mr. Policeman handcuffs from my belt and secured the prisoner’s hands behind his back. Joe directed me to the box.

 Then, and now, it was like looking at a movie running in slow motion and at double speed all at the same time. Things happened with great clarity, but too fast.

 “Push!” Joe ordered.

 I hesitated.

 He repeated the order.

 I pushed.

 The little box squirted into the bushes like a watermelon seed. The leaves on the branch above us rustled. Donny’s face turned color and he began bouncing up and down.

 It was that moment when mom appeared. Usually, in the business of children, the arrival of moms means trouble. But, for once in my life, I was overjoyed to see her descending like a guardian angel come to drive out evil.

 “What’s going on, here?” she yelled.

 Joe vanished like a bad dream.

 As fast as Joe and I hung Donny, mom and I set him free.

 Mom had one of those “little talks” with me. Donny stood around shuffling from one foot to the other, listening to me get my perspective on life realigned. He nodded affirmatively on more than one occasion.

 When it was over, mom told me to put my arm around Donny and say “Sorry.” I pretended not to want to. But inside, I was glad to do it. I remember, as I hugged him, that he had a peculiar smell about him. I knew it had to do with the level of excitement he achieved at the end of the rope that morning. It wasn’t a bad smell. But it was distinct . . . something akin to a fresh washed baby smelling of soap and new life.’

 I resolved then and there that I would never again kill anyone just because someone else said that was the thing to do. Donny and I spent more time playing at other things, things that kept us away from generals like Joe, and a war that really made no sense at all, a war that  touched everyone, a war that changed me forever.

 Years later, I heard about the war trials in Germany, and about guys who said they did what they did because they were following orders. They were wrong,  just as I was wrong. But also, in a small way, I understand what they were talking about.

 The control of a person who has power, or usurps it, coupled with a little attention and adulation, is virtually unbeatable . . . and sometimes fatal.

Richard Budig was born in 1936 and grew up in McCook. Shortly after his discharge from the U.S. Air Force in the early 1960s, he worked for a short time at the McCook Gazette. He later worked for several newspapers, freelanced to various newspapers and magazines and owned and operated an advertising agency. He also operated pawnshops, first in Lincoln, then Omaha, for 25 years. For years, he’s been writing stories about growing up in McCook and is now sharing them with the Gazette.