More On Marshall

Did our soldiers fight poorly in World War II (March issue)? No, they fought well in every theater of operations—and won!

Marshall is wrong to put a number on trigger pulling. How many men fired their weapons is not relevant, and neither are the arguments advanced in the article. What is relevant—and this is where Marshall is right—is the number of men who forced the action in each battle. This number was small . I know because I was an infantry squad leader in combat with an armored division in the European theater of operations.

The generals and colonels may have shouted, “Forward march—take this hill,” but this did not mean that the lonely squad, out there under the guns, was going to move, unless those few extraordinary men (privates, sergeants, and lieutenants) got up and started moving. They hoped the rest would follow. Thank the Lord we had those few brave men in nearly every action.

Clarke and Gavin and even Leinbaugh should know better than to claim that all men fired their weapons. They did not.