I hear civilians saying were all heroes, heard someone was it Arthur Godfrey on Armed Forces Radio? I cant recall, but its nonsense anyway. If everyone is a hero, then no one is. Others say everyone below ground is a hero, but a lot of those were just green kids who spent an hour or a day on the battlefield before standing up when they shouldnt have, or stepping where they shouldnt have stepped. If theres something heroic about stand up to scratch your ass and having some Kraut sniper ventilate your head, I guess I dont see it. If by hero, you mean one of those soldiers who will follow an order to rush a Kraut machine gun or stuff a grenade in a tank hatch, well, thats closer to meaning something. But the picture in your imagination, Gentle Reader, may not bear much similarity to reality. I knew a guy who did just thatjumped up on a Tiger tank and dropped a grenade (or was it two?) down the hatch. Blew the hell out of it too. But hed just gotten a Dear John letter from his fiance in the same batch of mail that informed him his brother had been killed. So I guess it was eight on the line between heroism and suicide.
