Dirt: Maps

Main Street, Bastogne, Belgium, Olin Daws, 1945

15 

If we reflect upon the commencement of War philosophically the conception of War does not originate properly with the offensive, as the form has for its absolute object, not so much fighting as the taking possession of something....

Karl von Clausewitz, On War

My map was on the ground beside me and was wrapped in plastic to protect it from rain and sweat. The plastic covering also allowed me to draw on it with a grease pencil. The scale of the map was 1:50,000, which meant that one map sheet covered a very small piece of the earth. The map was a masterpiece of the cartographer’s art and yet so common in my experience that I had long since quit admiring it. I wanted it to tell me even more than it did.

Brown contour lines provided a sense of the three-dimensional shape of the land — how high the hills were, how steep their sides. Small blue lines showed me the streams and rivers. Black symbols and lines told me the man-made objects that were on the land such as roads, houses, bridges, churches, and graveyards. Other tints and symbols told me about farmland and orchards and swamps and rice paddies.

Overprinted on the map was a grid that sectioned off the land into little squares one kilometer on a side. If the map was accurate, if my hand steady, if my eye clear, and if I could relate this piece of paper to the ground in which I dug, I could tell within 10 meters exactly where I was. I could create a number that would tell any listener to my radio or reader of my messages exactly the same thing.

On the plastic covering were drawn other symbols. They told me where to go and what to do when I got there. They told me who was supposed to be on my left and my right. Essentially, the symbols gave me ownership of a specific piece of the earth. I possessed this land with my men and my skill and my weapons. Also, when I converted my numbers into code and sent them up through the chain of command I told them, “Here I am! Don’t shoot me!”

But why was I here? This day? This time? That was not easy to answer.

An appraiser determines the value of civilian real estate. In general, that value is determined by the most recent sales of “comparable” pieces of property. It is self-evidently a fool’s game and a tautology, but it is in most places a shared delusion so that a market is made and deeds are exchanged. However, ownership established by anything other than force of arms is a rather modern idea.

The infantryman is from an older tradition. The infantryman establishes a much more primal claim to the land. His claim is very simple. “This is mine because I am here and I will kill you if you try to take it away from me. I have dug my hole and it’s either your blood or mine.”

That’s one soldier’s view. But the perception shifts the moment two foxholes are considered. Perception shifts again and again and again as the circumstances become more complex. Simple possession is not enough. Just being there only matters if being there has some advantage that favors the owner in relation to his enemy.

All other things being equal, the value of land to an infantryman derives primarily from its prominence, its shape and its location.

Consider a road junction in the Ardennes forest in late 1944. If an infantryman and his colleagues are at that junction, standing in the middle of the road, then a group of Germans who want to go through that junction will have to get them out of the way. If the infantrymen just stand there in the open, the Germans will shoot them, drop some artillery on them, or maybe just drive over them in their tanks, crushing their bodies into the mud and the snow. The location has some value, but defending is a bit difficult.

So what happens if they dig their holes beside the junction? That is a little bit better, at least now they are more difficult to kill. Their ability to control who can go through the junction is pretty much determined by who has the most people and the amount and types of weapons they have or can call on.

Suppose that the road junction is next to a small hill. If the infantrymen are up on the side of the hill where they can cover the intersection, then they can shoot anything that tries to get through and they are even more protected. To use the intersection, the Germans have to send some people up the hill to force the infantrymen away.

Of course, it doesn’t mean a damn thing if the infantrymen are in a place no one else wants. Of course, it doesn’t mean a damn thing if they occupy a hill that confers no advantage over their enemy. That was one of the many frustrations of being an infantryman in Vietnam. All too often the only point of attacking a location was to kill the people at that location. The dirt had no value relative to the enemy and once they were there it often meant nothing to the enemy or friendly forces. But the history of war is full of examples of mis-appreciation of the value of a particular piece of dirt. The infantryman just knows that it is his job to claim ownership today. Tomorrow will have to take care of itself.