fiction | Stephanie Rutt

Tag Archives: fiction

May 1, 2026 · 10:34 am

The Chocolate Bar

In May of 1945 a little girl approached a U. S. check point in Kronberg, Germany. She was maybe 7 years old. Dirty, holes in her shoes, blond pigtails, wearing a dress hanging on her frail body. Silent. She held out her hands. 23-year-old Corporal Jimmy Hayes, a farm boy from Iowa, watched. He had a chocolate bar in his pocket, a Hershey’s he’d saved from his ration pack.

Sargent Mike Donovan saw what was happening and placed a hand on Hayes’ shoulder warning him it was against regulations to feed the enemy.

“She’s just a kid, Sarge. Look at her. She’s starving,” Hayes pleaded.

“She’s a German kid. Yesterday her father may have been shooting at us. Civilians are not our responsibility. They wait for relief organizations,” the Sargent replied.

Hayes looked back at the little girl still standing there with her hands outreached. “Did she support Hitler, Sarge? Did she start this war?” The Sargent’s face hardened as he gave his final warning.

Then one of the younger girls started to cry. Silent, weak tears.

And Hayes made a decision. He took out the chocolate bar, unwrapped it, and broke it into small pieces. He gave the first piece to the little girl and then gave pieces to as many children as he could. It wasn’t enough. As the children turned to walk away, the little girl was the last to leave. She looked back at Hayes one more time and then followed the others.

Lieutenant Parker walked over. “Corporal, you disobeyed a direct order.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know that’s a court-martial offense.”

“Yes, sir.”

The report quickly reached General Patton’s desk. It said a Corporal had defied direct orders not to feed enemy children and asked how to handle it – to proceed with discipline or to let it go.

General Patton immediately called the division commander and said not to do anything until he arrived. The next morning his jeep rolled into the checkpoint. Hayes was terrified as everyone knew General Patton’s reputation for not tolerating insubordination.

The General looked Hayes up and down. “You gave away your ration to enemy civilians.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because they were hungry, sir. And they were just kids.”

When the General asked Lieutenant Parker for his recommendation, the Lieutenant recommended discipline. But General Patton walked over to the children huddling near and knelt down in front of the girl with the pigtails. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a candy bar and handed it to her.

Then turning back, “Lieutenant, you were right about discipline. Corporal, you were right about humanity. We don’t give out rations randomly but we also don’t let children starve either. Corporal Hayes, you’re in charge of setting up distribution stations. Make sure each child gets fed something every day until relief organizations arrive.”

Two weeks later, the little girl with the pigtails came up shyly to Hayes and handed him a folded sheet of paper. She had drawn, in pencil, a picture of him giving her a piece of bread. Hayes kept the drawing for the rest of his life, eventually hanging it in his Iowa home.

One decision. A court-martial offense. Still, one man had the courage and compassion to risk it all to place food into outreached hands.

The Trump administration talks a lot about ‘winning’ with epic fury, objectives met, charting milestones by points of devastation. They’re hoping the vibrato will drown out the memory that, in fact, Iran did not pose an imminent threat. And they are betting that the civilian toll, now exceeding 1400, including 200+ children, will soon be forgotten, and that the actual bodies, buried under the rubble out of sight will soon be out of mind.

I’d guess there are many Corporal Hayes serving in our military today. But where is our General Patton?

When I remember the school children killed early on, I wonder what might have happened if, instead of posturing around blame, America’s top commanders and generals had simply acknowledged this horrific, tragic, accident and offered some sort of humanitarian help and support to the grieving families?

Perhaps because Hegseth has called this a religious war, he and the top brass still standing were only able to imagine Middle Eastern children practicing Islam. The enemy. But Corporal Hayes didn’t notice race, nationality and likely wouldn’t have given a thought to religion. Neither did General Patton. All they saw was the innocent, the starving, the victims. And they responded.

And still today we remember a true hero and the picture he kept for a lifetime drawn by a small child with dirty hands.

And all it took was a chocolate bar.

* Accounts of this well-known story, rooted in a real incident, appear in oral histories, unit reports and postwar recollections, not in a single primary source.

The Cries of the Children

“Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.” Hebert Ward

Imagine you knew Gabby. A bouncy six-year-old who lives with her mother next door. You remember when she was born, at home, as there was no insurance or money for the hospital. Still, a joyous occasion. Growing up, every Halloween, she’s come over all excited to show you her special costume, and at Christmas you’ve gladly wrapped a couple of small gifts especially from Santa. On Easter, you’ve enjoyed coloring eggs with her and, later, helping her mom make her special Easter basket and hide the eggs. On her birthday each year, you’ve helped decorate with balloons, hang streamers and put up a rickety card table covered with a party theme table cloth, hats, horns, plates, cups and napkins all from the local thrift store. Perfect.

Her mother, originally from Mexico, has been here many years after escaping the horrific daily violence back home. She goes to work, pays taxes, and contributes to her local community in a multitude of ways. But because she’s an immigrant, she’s not eligible for the many safety-net services available to U.S. citizens. That’s okay. She’s made her way by working hard and is ever grateful to live in the U.S.

Not feeling she’s a threat, she doesn’t fear deportation and voluntarily checks in with ICE about her immigration status and to ask about next steps. However, on her last visit, she along with about 20 other people are taken off in a white unmarked van while their relatives can only watch helplessly. (For the original story, see “ICE Separated a 6-Year-Old,” Chicago Tribune, June 22, 2025.)

You, being right next door and very close to Gabby, are among the first to have to tell her that her mother is gone.

“Where’s my mommy? I want my mommy!” she screams, thrashing wildly, smearing tears on your sleeve. You try in the kindest way to tell her you’re sure her mommy is okay and will be home soon. You desperately try to comfort her with a warm bowl of mac and cheese, her favorite. And you huddle close, read her favorite bedtime stories, until her cries gently soften from exhaustion and she falls asleep in your arms. Then you too have a good cry.

Her mother, now far away, has no idea where she’s being taken, how long she’ll be there and when, or if, she’ll ever be able to go home again. There’s no warrant for her arrest. No court date. No due process. None of the normal pillars of standard operating procedure within the U.S. judicial system. Stunned, numb and alone, she too curls up on a makeshift bed sobbing and squeezing herself pretending she’s holding her Gabby. “What’s going to happen to my little girl?” her heart cries, desperately trying to quell the unthinkable, “Will I ever see my baby again?”

Sadly, similar scenarios are being played out every day all around the country. According to, “ICE’s family separations are forcing children to parent themselves,” by Diana Fishbein, The Hill, 08/08/2025, “All this is happening to meet an arbitrary goal toward the mass deportation of 15 million immigrants, which would amount to about 3,000 each day. Because only a small fraction are criminals — in fact, immigrants commit significantly fewer violent crimes than those born in the U.S. — ICE has resorted to detaining law-abiding residents, many of whom have deep roots in their communities and children who depend on them.”

But Gabby is no number. Her mother is no number. They are human beings, our neighbors. Their children run with ours in local parks, pray with ours in Sunday school, sit in the same schoolrooms hoping for playdates. Their hopes and dreams, once possible to imagine in America, now dashed in an instant by unprovoked, unprecedented, cruelty.

Yet, we shouldn’t be surprised. As I reported in my 3-17-2025 Opinion, 4,600 children were separated from their parents in the first Trump administration. The Biden task force successfully reunited many families but, as part of Trump’s first executive order, he rescinded the task force leaving the remaining 1,360 still searching, stranded.

Worst of all, none of this was necessary. Remember when a bipartisan immigration bill, the first to map out comprehensive reform, came up for a vote before the election? Trump made sure it didn’t pass. Why? He wanted this. And every day we’re told this is what the majority of us want too.

I don’t buy it. Not here. Not in America. I stand with our Declaration of Independence and wish for Gabby and her mother, and all those like them, the same “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” promised to the rest of us. And I pray that the abuse being perpetrated every day, casting a shadow the length of a lifetime over our neighbors, will soon be eradicated by all of us who can hear the cries of the children.