All of us who trained in the Infantry in World War II -- every mother's son of us -- can attest to the discipline that was drilled into us. Today I look back and wonder whether it could have been otherwise. But then? Well, then, you couldn't have expected us to like it.

I had just reached 18 when I entered the Infantry ("with dirt behind their ears"), 19 when I was baptized by combat. A little of the rebel remained in me somehow. Not withstanding the stern, even punitive warnings against GI's keeping combat logs, I kept one.

I had more opportunity than most to compile one. Sent overseas as a heavy machine gunner, I was reassigned to heavy mortars, then made mail clerk and assistant company clerk. Having started to study journalism before being drafted, I was often detached from the front lines to write citations for Silver and Bronze Stars as well as battlefield commissions on various battered American and German typewriters. I must have batted out 15 citations.

To this day, I can recite details of some of the most sonorous deeds of my fellow combat infantrymen of Co. D, 345th Infantry. To this day, some of those deeds bring tears to my eyes.

My own combat log is somewhat cryptic, but it does evoke some of the places, names, conditions, personal feelings, and the bold sweep of the Third U.S.Army in World War II.

At first I secreted the log in my clothes. After the war, however, I carried it for awhile in my wallet, then stuffed it in drawers and suitcases wherever I lived. Without the Golden Acorn News feature and the solicitation by the Army History Institute, however, I never would have been reminded of my log.

It's not always legible and not always clear, but its mere existence in the face of severe and repeated admonitions against keeping one is, to me, a minor miracle. For this reason I don't think very many others will be uncovered.

¹ "Al" is my brother Albert, a T/5 in the 386th AAA Bn.

² See "“The Eagle” Drops Its Gold During Short Battle Pause" for observations about the GI payroll.