Word: platoon
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Spartanburg, S.C. was torn between pride and embarrassment this autumn when a local boy named Thomas Eugene Atkins came home a hero. Few soldiers of World War II had fought more gallantly-with his hip shattered by a bullet, the rest of his platoon dead around him in the Luzon jungles, quiet, steady-eyed Pfc. Gene Atkins had kept "taking a sight" on Jap attackers, had killed 44 of them. He had been flown home on a bomber to meet the President and get the Congressional Medal of Honor. But when he got back to Spartanburg, the hero...
After basic will come specialized training, with strong emphasis on weapons, radio, radar, other technical aspects of modern warfare. At first the trainee will work with squad or platoon, then with a regimental team, finally in combined maneuvers such as amphibious landings. Maneuvers will be held at large camps like Sill or Benning, which have both room and equipment...
...rejoined Chennault as an Air Forces lieu tenant, was made a captain before the war's end. Brother Stewart, turned down by the U.S. Army because of high blood pressure, enlisted in the British Army, fought with the 16th Rifles in Africa and Italy as a machine-gun platoon commander. After the British gave him a captain's commission, the U.S. Army wanted him. He parachuted behind the German lines, fought with the French Maquis...
...cool courage and a natural, bushwhacking ability to operate with small forces always pulled him out. For the easy, offhand job he did with a rifle in holding off a unit of Russian partisans which had attacked an American platoon, he won the Distinguished Service Cross...
From Okinawa last week came word that Lieut. Robert J. Herwig. a 6-ft. 3-in. platoon leader of the 6th Marine Division, had distinguished himself again-this time by plunging into a burning plane and dragging three men to safety. On Guam last year the onetime All-America football player (University of California) had won the Navy Cross for "extraordinary heroism" by leading his men in repelling three heavy Jap counterattacks, and by refusing evacuation though he was twice wounded. His own men know Bob Herwig only as an exceptional officer. They have all but forgotten what U.S. civilians...