I forwarded your post to my cousin, Jane, whose Dad served as an army cook in WWII. He once said that he would have followed Patton “to hell and back!”.
My father-in-law, may be rest in peace, joined the army as a cook, before WWII, right out of CCC camp, because jobs were scarce, and as a full blood Loyal Shawnee, in Oklahoma, they were even more scarce. (Folks in Oklahoma weren’t quite so proud of their Indians, as they claim to be, now.) When the war started, he was transferred to the infantry, on the European field of battle. My husband grew up wheedling recollections about the war from his dad, who rarely spoke of it, otherwise. He is immensely proud of his father’s service. These men who came back, were forever changed by their experiences. They were tough, and had an outlook on life of perseverance, no matter what the circumstance. After what they had been through, no one could push them around, and just like in the war, they did what had to be done, to get the job done. I’m sorry that most of them are no longer with us. What they did for us, cannot be measured.