What I've Learned

In the army, I attended a commando school where we were taught, among other useful things, how to kill an enemy sentry. Part of the technique is to get close enough to strike without alerting him of your presence. To do this, you must not stare at the person – as is the tendency – because people, inexplicably, can sense when someone is staring at them and will tend to glance back at you.

During this training, we had to take turns being the sentry, which was no fun. The attacker would sneak up to what is called the release point, then strike with sudden, explosive force. Even though rubber knives were used and neck-breaking techniques were simulated, the resultant bruises were real.

Some years later, I was in combat and my unit, at times, was behind enemy lines. Fortunately, I was never called on to kill a sentry. No doubt I could have, but it would have haunted me to this day.

Why do I end this year and start a new one with such a gruesome subject? Because I've been reading about Nancy Wake, who died a few months ago at the age of 98.

In her 20s and 30s, she was a resistance fighter, battling the Nazis in France. She became one of the Allied Force's most decorated women.

On one raid, she killed a Nazi sentry to prevent him from raising the alarm. She did it with her bare hands.

"I was not a very nice person," she said of her wartime self.

Her only regret from that era was the death of her husband. He was captured and tortured, but died refusing to reveal her whereabouts.

Known as the White Mouse because of her ability to elude capture, Wake rose to the top of the Gestapo's most-wanted list. They put a five-million-franc price on her head. She escaped them on skis. She escaped them by crossing a hidden bridge. She escaped them by car, though it was pursued by an airplane. On one occasion, she jumped from a moving train.

She was so lovely and full of positive energy, she could often flirt her way through Nazi checkpoints.

One night in 1944, she parachuted into the Auvergne to meet up with a resistance group headed by Captain Henri Tardivat. Her chute got caught in a tree. Captain Tardivat said to her, "I hope that all the trees in France bear such beautiful fruit this year."

Her reply cannot be quoted here.

One of her French colleagues said she was the most feminine of women until fighting started. Then, she was like five men.

"I hate wars and violence," she said, "but if they come, then I don't see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas."

Wake helped more than 1,000 Allied soldiers escape from France into Spain. In preparation for D Day, she led a force of 7,000 resistance fighters in missions of sabotage.

In 2001, she sold her war medals for 75,000 pounds.

"There was no point in keeping them," she said. "When I die, I'll probably go to hell, and they'd melt anyway."

In the 1980s, Wake wrote her autobiography, The White Mouse.

More recently, Australian author Peter FitzSimons wrote a book called Nancy Wake, A Biography of Our Greatest War Heroine.

If I can get my hands on them, I intend to read both.