"Last Full Measure…"
- Campbell tells us that he also met Hoess once. During the war, they were both at a swinging shindig in Warsaw.
- Hoess heard that Campbell was pretty snazzy when it came to putting pen to paper and making stuff up. Hoess always wished he was a creative type.
- What is Campbell even doing in Warsaw, he rhetorically asks us? Well, it's because of his very talent with words.
- Campbell's boss, Goebbels, wants him to write a sick play. Sick as in straight-up messed up.
- So what's the story? Campbell is asked to dramatize the killing of Jews in a Warsaw ghetto. Goebbels wants to stage it every year in—ahem—honor—vomit—of the German soldiers who died in the process of killing others.
- The play never gets written. Campbell is relieved that it doesn't get written and added to his list of crimes. He admits that he would have written it, though, if there had been time.
- Instead, all these guys have is a working title: Last Full Measure.
- Goebbels wants to know where Campbell came up with this title, since it's peachy keen to him.
- Campbell: Abe Lincoln said it in the Gettysburg address. (We Shmooped a line from this important piece of historical writing here.)
- Goebbels: I like it. Can I show Hitler?
- Campbell: Knock your socks off.
- Goebbels: Great!...Wait…Abe Lincoln? Abraham Lincoln? This guy wasn't Jewish, was he?
- Campbell: Wasn't.
- Goebbels: Sure? Because I'd be really embarrassed if he were, and I showed Hitler this.
- Campbell: Naw. I'm sure his parents didn't even realize it was a Jewish name. If they did, they'd probably have named him Stan.
- Goebbels: Phew.
- Turns out Hitler loves the title. Vomit. Again.
- Campbell segues not so neatly to an observation that he doesn't really think about dudes from the war. More often than not he thinks—and dreams—about the women: his wife and her sister. They're gone now.
- While he's taking to Mengel the guard about his dream-talk, we learn that Campbell has spent some time in NYC.
- Mengel thinks NYC must be heaven.
- Campbell calls it worse than hell: purgatory.