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Joe Bernard wrote: My enduring
prejudice is that our walking infantrymen are not selected from among the men
who should be in our fighting echelons, and they are severely handicapped when committed to combat.
- O -
Take a 19-year-old
kid thousands of miles from home. Put him on a hill, and give him a rifle and
shovel. Tell him to dig a hole in the ground to sleep in. Allow him to
sleep only about four hours each night, never undressing, or even taking off his
boots. During the remaining nighttime hours he must remain awake, prepared
to shoot and kill anyone who tries climb the hill, and approach the hole he
is lying in.
Have him
march all day, after four hours sleep, knowing that killers could be waiting for
him at the crest of each hill, or around each bend in the road.
Give
him a few cans of food to eat. No bath, no shaving, and no
haircut.
Expose him
to these conditions for weeks on end, then imagine his mental
condition.
What kind of
shell did we have to go into to survive these conditions and still keep our
sanity?
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