As a young boy though, they seemed common men who behaved as if they had experienced an ordinary rite of passage. My most often contact started about age nine when my dad began taking me out golfing on the weekends. There was a man who used the first golf cart I ever saw, because as a brigade commander of the 41th infantry in New Guinea he was permanently debilitated by sickness. I remember one fairly good golfer who had kind of a weird back swing. I found out he was crippled while serving with the Big Red One in Sicily. My Economics professor in college served with one of the first UDT teams clearing barricades and mines in the surf zone before Pacific landings. I often ended up as a dishwasher at Michelbook Country Club and noticed the chef always limped as he moved around the kitchen. He saw my puzzled look, and said he got the limp from a wound received when he was with the Rangers at Pointe De Hoc. Those are just a few of the stories I remember among so many others I could tell or have forgotten.
I remain amazed how certain infantry divisions could be chosen repeatedly for initial assaults where they incurred terrible casualties. The corps and army commanders had favorites and somehow division staffs responded to reconstitute and retrain the rifle platoons every few weeks without losing the quality of the assault forces. It seems other divisions were usually sent to less active sectors, entered combat later in time, or occupied a flank in an attack. Again, these were the most ordinary of men, so I keep hearing Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man as I read the narratives for this essay.
The Man With the Rifle Knows
(Author Unknown)
Men may argue forever on what wins their wars
and welter on cons and pros.
And seek their answers at history’s doors,
But the Man With the Rifle Knows.
He must stand on the ground on his own two feet,
And he’s never in doubt when it’s won.
If it’s won he is there, if he’s not it’s defeat.
That’s his test when the fighting is done.
When he carries the fight it’s not with a roar
of armored wings spitting death.
It’s creep and crawl on the earthen floor,
Butt down and holding his breath.
Saving his strength for the last low rush,
Grenade throw and bayonet thrust;
And the whispered prayer before he goes in,
Of a man who does what he must.
And when he’s attacked, he can’t zoom away,
When the shells fill the world with their sound.
He stays where he is, loosens his spade,
And digs his defense in the ground.
That ground isn’t ours till he’s there in the flesh
Not a gadget, or a bomb, but a man.
He’s the answer to theories which start afresh
With each peace since war began.
So let the wild circle of argument rage
On what wins as war comes and goes.
Many new theories may hold the stage,
BUT THE MAN WITH THE RIFLE KNOWS.
18 year olds too.
Compare and contrast to the special snowflakes of today...
I remember that Napoleon was quoted as saying “artillery kills soldiers”. I have also read that the majority of casualties are caused by artillery.
Still the rifle platoons are the tip of the spear and it is necessary for them to occupy ground in order to win.
I recall seeing statistics that indicated that the
number of combat unit soldiers who actually fired
their weapons in combat was incredibly low in WWII.
It was so low, in fact, that I didn’t believe it
then and I still dont. My father was with the 11th
Airborne held in reserve on New Guinea. They landed
on and fought their way across Leyte and jumped on to
Luzon. Attending various reunions with my dad I never
got the impression that relatively few of his fellow
paratroopers ever fired their Garands, BARs, or
Thompsons. I think the stats I saw must have included
desk jockies at Taccoa.
My dad served in the infantry in WWII, and was proud to have been assigned to the First Division, “Big Red One”. The winter of 1944 was bitterly cold and he always remembered their commander promising the infantrymen one hot meal a day and if possible, a dry pair of socks.
Those young men did their part ot make America great.
1. To exclude heavy weapons companies from the “foot soldier” category shows an inadequate understanding of infantry organization.
2. The weapons platoons in the rifle companies don’t count either?
3. Engineer units rarely engaged the enemy.
4. Why did you leave out the 6 infantry divisions in the Mediterranean Theater on V-E Day?
5. The 144 rifle platoons in the armored divisions don’t count?
I’ve often thought what I would say if called upon to speak to the bravery of these brave men and settled on naming famous battles beginning with Bunker Hill and on from there chronologically ie: Ticonderoga, Trenton, New York, Yorktown, Tripoli, Gettysburg, Antetum, Seminary Ridge, Little Round Top, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, Chancellorsville, Custer’s Last Stand, San Juan Hill, Verdun, Marne, Ypres, Somme, Belleau Wood, Pearl Harbor, Bataan, Corregidor, Midway, North Atlantic, Operation Torch, Kasserine Pass, Sicily, Anzio, Monte Casino, 8th Air Force B-17 Daylight Bombings, Normandy, Battle of the Budge, Wake Island, the Doolittle Raid, Coral Sea, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Kwajalein Atoll, Saipan, Guam, Peleliu, Leyte Gulf, Luzon, Manila, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Battle of The Bulge, Osan, Inchon, Chosin Reservoir, Ia Drang Valley, Khesan, Ton Son Nhut, Con Thien, Tet, Hue, Hamburger Hill, Rolling Thunder, Kabul, Kandahar, Tora Bora, Anaconda, Baghdad, Fallujah, Mogadishu, Najaf, Benghazi and hundreds more. But you get the idea, by saying the name it would evoke powerful memories.
Plus a few Marines....