Heller Dialectical Journal

Mission 37 Heller was the craziest of them all. Like most Americans, he was the son of two immigrants – two Russian Jews to be exact, who left everything escaping the desolate tundra of Siberia to travel to America. They hoped to begin a new life in the land of opportunity, but were held short due to the onset of the Great Depression and the passing of Heller’s father. In 1942, Heller enrolled in cadet school to become a bombardier, graduating in 1944.1 As a twenty-one-year-old officer, he had no serious complaints about his life in the army which landed him a grand vacation overseas to the Mediterranean.2 He enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow airmen and took any chance he could get to joke with the crew. The outfit recently received

The sky, as far as Heller could see, was overwhelmed with coal-black explosions that violently jerked the ship in all directions. Out of sheer stupidity, the pilot panicked and sent the plane into a vertical dive. A deafening, paralyzing, horrifying dive which petrified Heller. The co-pilot wrestled the controls away from the pilot and sharply yanked up on them, pressing Heller into the cold metal floor, which kept him from falling to his death below. Regaining his sanity, the pilot rescued them just in time by seizing the controls back from the co-pilot, leveling the ship off ironically back in the middle of the buffeting layer of flak from which they had magnificently escaped only seconds

The navigator had a wound in his lower abdomen where a piece of shrapnel had pierced his body and was now lodged. His brown eyes were dilated; his skin was stone cold yet he was sweating; his blood pooled on the floor. Heller tore off his jacket and wrapped it around the him. “Am I…” slurred the navigator. “Am I going to die?” “No!” Heller roared, not able to believe his eyes. “Kid you’re going to be alright…” “I just want to go home…” The navigator sighed one last time as Heller gazed deep into his eyes, shaking him increasingly vigorous until his eyes shut for the last time. The navigator who had everything to live for was dead. Heller again froze with fear, sitting there staring at the lifeless navigator, unable to utter a word, unable to move, unable comprehend the events that had transpired before his eyes.5 The navigator’s death consumed him; it ate him from the inside and convinced him that it could have easily been himself lying there motionless. Heller no longer was the craziest in the squadron; he still had no serious complaints about his life in the army and flew a total of sixty missions, but went about the rest of his time in the Mediterranean knowing that death lurked around every corner.6 Mostly, he wished that he could have gotten to know the young