 I loved the infantry because they were the underdogs. They had no comforts, and they learned to live without the necessities. And in the end, they were the guys without whom the battle could not have been won. Those words were written by Ernie Pyle, Ernie Pyle, famous correspondent. While the folks back home, Ernie Pyle wrote a book about the G.I. soldier, a book called Here's Your War. NBC dramatized that book on a program called Words at War and repeats some of those stories now. Stories told, as Ernie Pyle told them. A narrow path wound like a ribbon over a hill miles away. And along the length of that ribbon, there was a thin line of men. For four days and nights they had fought hard, eaten little, washed none, and slept hardly at all. Their nights had been violent with attack, fright, butchery. Their days sleepless and miserable with the crash of artillery. The men were walking slowly, but they were dead weary. Every line of their bodies spoke their inhuman exhaustion. On their shoulders they carried heavy steel tripods, machine gun barrels, leaden boxes of ammunition. Their feet seemed to sink in the ground. There was an agony in your heart and you felt almost ashamed to look at them. They were just guys from Broadway and Main Street. Their world can never be known to you. But if you could have seen them just once, you would know that no matter how hard people were working back home, they never kept face with those infantrymen in Tunisia. We talk sometimes during the lulls, talk about home mostly. When do you figure the war will be over, Ernie? I don't know. It's hard to say, Snip. This young, maybe? I hardly think so, Riley. I sure wish it was over. Maybe it'll be over in 1944, Ernie. Maybe? Boy, I sure want to get home. Back there in Texas where there's open country. I like open country where if you want a holler, you can get out and holler. I don't care about hollering. I'd like to get back on my job. What was your job, Riley? I was kind of a carpenter, but my specialty was cabinet work. That's what I like. I'm going to be a cabinet worker when I get back. Yes, sir. That's for me. What did you do, Snip? I drove a bakery truck. You know, sometime I'd make as high as $60 a week on that bakery rock? That's good money, Snip. I'd make that doing cabinet work. I might even make more than that. $60 a week would be okay for me. Of course I don't plan on driving that bakery truck, especially. What do you plan on, Snip? Oh, I don't know. I might do any number of things. Ernie, do you like to hunt? Well, I guess I... Listen, when the war's over, will you come hunting with me in South Carolina? You let me take your fishing before you do that. I'll show you some fishing... Hey, hey, hey, what do you want? Have you ever been deer hunting in South Carolina, Ernie? No, I haven't. Boy, if I live through this, I'm going to do me some real fishing when I get home. Corsons, most people. Men live rough and talk rough. And if they didn't toughen up inside, they simply wouldn't be able to take it. An officer friend of mine told me of an incident that touched him deeply. During a battle, he and a fellow officer came up to a tiny farmhouse. And just to be on the safe side, they called before entering. Anybody in there? Who's in there? Who's in there? I'm in here. Oh. And who wants to know? I'm Lieutenant Brown, sir. This is Lieutenant Krueger. May we come in? Do what you please. Captain, we won't be in your way. You won't be in my way. I'm heating up some rations. I hope you've got some of your own. Yes, we have, sir. May we throw our bedding down over here? Put it where you like. Thank you, sir. Watch out for that man over there. Oh, I didn't see him. He's wounded, sir. He's dead. Sir, I happen to have this bottle here. Would you join us in a drink? What? Well, will you have a drink, sir? Drink? Have you got enough for my men outside? I know, sir. Just what's here? No thanks. War carcens people. My own emotions seemed dead and crusty when presented with the tangibles of war. I found I could look on rows of fresh graves without a lump in my throat. Somehow I could look on mutilated bodies without flinching. It was only when I sat alone, away from it all, thinking, that at last the enormity of those newly dead struck like a living nightmare. There were times when I felt I couldn't stand it and would have to leave. But in the fighting soldier, that phase of the war was behind. It was left behind after his first battle. His blood was up. He was fighting for his life. Killing became as much a profession to him as writing was for me. He was truly at war. And yet? Chewing gum? Okay. Goodbye. And yet this same frontline soldier was quite a different fellow in the towns and villages. More often than not, he gave all his rations away to the scrawny Arab kids, then had to live on oranges and tangerines himself. The Arab kids were friendly and our soldiers weren't two days in a new place where every kid in town could say in English, chocolate, chewing gum, okay. Goodbye. Chewing gum, chocolate, okay. Wait a minute, you guys. Anybody got any candy or gum? Sorry, Sonny. We're all out of gum and chocolate. Okay. Gee, we're sorry, Sonny. Hey, what are you crawling around the dirt for? Come on, Sonny, get up. You're dirty enough without crawling in it. On your feet, pal. Wait a minute, Jack. This kid can't get up. Okay. Okay. Hey, the poor kid has to crawl. He must crawl all over town like that. Chewing gum? Yeah. Yeah, chewing gum, Sonny. We'll find you some chewing gum. Come on now. Up you go. Okay. Okay. Okay. They got him some chewing gum. And more than that. They took this terribly crippled Arab back to their aid room. They took the wheels off a battery carrier. They made a little wheel platform for the kid to lie on. Now he rolls along the streets instead of crawling in the filth. And every soldier is his friend. Okay. Chewing gum? Yes, war courses people. But it cannot harden the hearts of American boys. For all the killing they must do, so there will be an end to killing. I do not think that any of us who have seen the mass cruelty of war can ever be cruel to a living thing when this war is over. And what about you, soldier? I'm just the same as I always was. I'm no different. But he is different. The men over here in North Africa have changed. They're too close to themselves to sense the change, perhaps. But they have changed in little ways. One soldier's inevitably asked me two questions wherever I went. When's the war gonna be over, Ernie? When do you think we'll get home, Ernie? It's different now. Sure, they all still want to go home. There is something deeper now. It isn't a theatrical proclamation that the enemy must be destroyed in the name of freedom. It's just that we got to win this war or else. We can't be running excursion steamers back and forth across the Atlantic while we're doing it. They're rougher than when you last saw them. War is a rough business. Money means little to them right now. They spend it freely or give it away. And they are dead sure of one thing. Boy, if I ever get home, I'm gonna stay home. I never want to see a foreign country again. I don't want to even hear about a foreign country. But down in their hearts, they know full well. You won't be home six months before you start going around talking Arabic, bragging about that girl you met in England and telling about the beautiful sunset you saw in Germany. Oh, me? Why, I... Well... I guess that's just above what we'll all be doing. You'll know them all right. They'll snap back into the ways of peace just as they snapped into the ways of war. Meanwhile, they're well cared for. No soldiers in any other war in history have had such excellent attention. They're a healthy army. Their food is good. Boy, what I wouldn't give for a swell steak in a Broadway restaurant. He's thinking more of Broadway than the steak. He's thinking more of home. Wherever home may be. Finally, the campaign was over. Now we're in a lull. And under this cloudless sky and by this blue Mediterranean, there are the rows of white crosses that we must leave behind as we start for another battlefield. As we start another march, feeling as we always feel that this is the march that will lead us home, the one goal of every American who marches in foreign soil. There will always be some left behind as we go from one battlefield to another. They die, and thereby the rest of us can go on. There's nothing we can do for the ones beneath the wooden crosses, except perhaps to pause murmur. That's how Ernie Pyle wrote it in his book, Here's Your War. True, there is nothing we can do for the ones beneath the wooden crosses, but there's plenty we can do for those who lived to march again. We can buy war bonds, a very tangible way of putting teeth and meaning into that. Thanks, pal, that Ernie Pyle was talking about. As the acknowledged authority on the common soldier, his book serves as the basis of a new movie to be called G.I. Joe. And G.I. Joe everywhere and never more than now, today, needs your support in war bonds. This play was directed by Joseph Mansfield and the script was by Gerald Holland. NBC now continues its 21-hour salute to five million bond salesmen. Thank you.