After the war, many of the soldiers were taking home souvenirs, silver, and gold. Many in the form of cups and dinner ware. Candlesticks were very popular. I saw huge paintings pulled from the walls and rolled or folded up and taken away. It was looting on a continental scale. I was not exempted from the temptation. 

I was part of a covert mission to recover special “artifacts” that the German Army was seeking to use against the world. To conjure power not of this world. We all thought it was hooey, but it kept us off the front lines, so we didn’t complain. I guess a classical education had it perks in this war. We were known as huntsmen, our official name was division 13. 

I learned that stories were fabricated from top brass and spread word of mouth throughout the ranks. We were supposedly a rogue squad that took the hardest missions and our success rate was clouded by the brutalism in which we accomplished them. The stories about our squad made most men fear us and commanders respect us enough not to ask any questions of our doings. It was real cloak and dagger shit. 

As a huntsmen, We saw things that some of us couldn’t explain nor care to remember. I was fascinated by it all. I took my souvenirs. Even though threaten by punishment of death if we broke our silence of our unit’s existence or of what we witnessed, I took my pieces of the war home with me. 

Small and seemingly insignificant. A small black stone that was on the hilt of a German lieutenant’s cane, had broken in pieces when it fell to the ground after he was shot. We recovered the broken pieces, bagged, tagged, and entered in the journals. Except for a small piece, which I kept. I had thought to myself, what a wonderful center piece to a ring it would make. 

When the stone fell onto the ground and broke, a few pieces turned to dust and for a moment, the dust lit up like a lightning cloud in the Midwest. Although very small, we all knew there was power residing within the stone.

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