It was summer. The spring had faded and heat replaced what had once been a gentle touch of heat and cold. Winter’s grip had totally faded and Summer’s reign had just begun. But all was not as it seemed. Though the larks were singing, they could scarcely be heard among the guns below. For this was not just a season of summer, but it was season unending, it was war. But I did not start here, on the Mississippi, as so many did, but I started at the beginning of the great conflict. I was stationed in Taiwan right out of boot camp as the US