 This is the story of the 1st Infantry Division, the Red One, whose fighting men saw the war through from D-Day North Africa to V-E-Day Germany. Those combat boots, polished now for occupation duty, slogged through eight campaigns and three amphibious landings, but units of the 1st fought as far back as the Revolution to preserve the Union in the Civil War. Were 1st in combat in World War I, when those units were combined into a regular army division? Then in 1941 there came from all walks of life a new generation of recruits. Boy, do I remember breaking in them 1st GI shoes. We learned quick it was a fighting outfit from that rugged training we got here and overseas. Still when we left England along in 42, we felt pretty good. At a swell CG, Terry Allen, a fighting general. We liked him, and he liked us. So the outfit relaxed, had some fun. Till, on a chilly November dawn, to the coast of North Africa out there in the dark, we knew action was close. Everyone tightened up. Wait, it was colder. The water or the feeling in my stomach when they opened up on us. In three days Oran was ours. Easy. Too easy. We thought we knew what war was like. But Jerry taught us different. Girty 88s, tough school pal. The times you got to work your way through. Damn near flunked out at the tasselry. But we learned the score, started to teach Jerry a few things out of our book. We ran our way back to Gaffsa and down Ronald's throat at El Guitare. Where we tore up his crack-tent panzer to be. Then we swung north to mature, inching artillery, hidden mines, walls of machine gun fire. Meanwhile Montgomery's 8th Army cracked the merit line. When we shook hands with his patrols, it was over the corpse of Ronald's army. After Tunisia, the crazy rumor got around that we were going to load on boats for home. We loaded on boats all right, but for Sicily. Which, believe me, was no place like home. This time the beachhead was plenty rough. But after we broke through, the Red One moved fast. Took 18 pounds in 37 days. But to take it, we had to stop and slug it out from the mountains all along the way. Like Coiner. Pretty mountains down. But after 21, yeah, 21, Jerry counter attacks, it looked like this. We won all right, but we paid. After Coiner, they send us back to England. Our new CG, General Huebner, put us through the jumps again. We tracked this for another beachhead. But this one we knew was going to be the payoff. The biggest show of all. The curtain went up on June 6, 1944. I just think of Omaha as a big town in Nebraska, not anymore. To me, it's a piece of beach in Normandy that was held. We were getting called out to remorder a machine gun fire like rain, without even an umbrella for protection. We came close to being rained out all right. But when Colonel Taylor of the 16th yelled, get the hell off the beach, we got the hell off, and ran smack into headroad country with a proud set of the field-like forts, using the headroad for walls. Like a Chinese puzzle out of hell, we cleaned up one field only to find out the next was loaded with Jerry. Had to keep digging all the time for cover from 88s and mortars, because if you didn't, still in a week's time, we ducked, shot, and plowed our way to Kalman. Well, we waited for the other outfist to come up on our flanks. The French with tickle to see that a superman getting licked by plain American dopey, who were human beings, too. We got a chance to clean up and tell the folks back home how we were doing. It had to be a short note, though, that their big blow-up was ruined. It came on July 25th, when it seemed the whole damn air corps got in on a big bus to run slow. The country pulled an off-tackle play west of the town. The 4th and 9th divisions opened up a nice big hole, and a burst charged through. Patents' tanks went running all over like risky colts chopping up the panicky crops, but it was the dope for those who did the cleaning up. Combat engineers dug up mines like fat cabbages, cleared away roadblocks. And all the time, the infantry kept coming along for the final kill, with slugging and slogging, shooting, march, grab a nap when you could, eat while you hiked, sea rations, caves, and a lot of dust. That's what the school books call victorious pursuit, eating dust. Even when they put you on trucks, yay, dust. It was the hell of a way to see La Belle France, but we sure covered ground. From Coutinque in a month, we drove right away clear across France. We drew soiree sun with a red one smeared gerry 26 years ago. We rolled across the Belgian border, bagged 17,000 high knees in a three-day scrap around Monts, and kept scooping them up all the way to the Siegfried line. We cracked it in three days, drove a claim into Hitler's backyard around Arkham. It looked like the final round was coming up. We did some preparing. Hitler decided to hold out in Arkham, prep up the Germans by making it a symbol of Nazi resistance. Gave them a slogan, too. You were frightened for the honor of the National Socialist German Army, he said. Hard, too. House to house for weeks, but we had a slogan, too. No mission too difficult, no sacrifice too great, but we had to do the duty first. And the payoff, our slogan, had more punch. We cleaned them out house by house, street by street, till on the 21st of October, Arkham, or what was left of it, surrendered. We hadn't seen the worst yet. Hurts and quarries showed us that. We trimmed down the outfit, but we cleaned out jury. The Landers, our new CG, pulled us out for our first rest in six months. We couldn't believe it. Even when we got back to Verveer in Belgium, we knew it was too good to last. Hitler shot the works with one last gamble in the Ardennes. And back in the line, we went to hold the northern shoulder of the bulge. There's an old story for the red one. Mean weather. Jerry Beaton is brained out attacking, counterattacking, when we got rolling again after the bulge, we found the Rhine River ahead of us. It looked like a big ditch for dopey to jump. But the ninth armored grabbed a weird-looking bridge as we're margined, and we got over fast. After that, we just flew away the brakes and kept rolling. Well, right through the belly of Germany. And they told us in May the war was over. Do you know where we were? Czechoslovakia. Yeah, Czechoslovakia. And brother, where we tired. You know, they call the infantry the queen of battle. Don't ask me why. You wouldn't say those guys look pretty, would you? No, not pretty. But they're real men, soldiers, who do their job.