We hope the vast majority of our American readers are enjoying the Memorial Day holiday outdoors, and thus won’t be reading these words ’til much later. Microkhan, alas, won’t be barbecuing with y’all—this is just another work day ’round here, as the screenplay deadline looms. We’re gonna devote the bulk of today’s energies to that project, but we realize that we’ve also got a pressing responsibility to round out our NtHWS Extras series. Tomorrow, after all, is when the Now the Hell Will Start paperback finally drops.
In Memorial Day’s somber spirit, our penultimate Extras installment is about the burial of Pvt. Herman Perry, the book’s main character. The picture at right is of his erstwhile grave near Ledo, India. We found it while combing through the archives of the Military History Institute; it was snapped by a soldier who had donated his papers to the Army. An inscription on the back reads:
These pictures speak for themselves, except for the one Perry’s Grave. This grave is on a plot away from all the others, because Perry was a deserter.
All of the American bodies at the Ledo Cemetery were disinterred in 1949 and moved to the Schofield Barracks Post Cemtery in Hawaii, where Perry was once again buried among the dishonored dead. In the process of writing Now the Hell Will Start, we had occasion to assist Perry’s sister in moving her brother’s remains for a final time. The full story on that is told in this Washington Post story from June 2008.
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