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 Comment from IP 

I was a Sophmore in High School when the 37th division was sent to the South Pacific theater of war. Three years later, in May, 1945, I was a replacement joining this Division where I earned my combat badge in June of that year. June 30th did not see the end of combat for this Division. I was an 18yr. old replacement and a member of Company D, 145th Infantry Regiment when we were sent deep into the Cagahan(Sp?) Valley of Northern Luzon with the assignment to thwart the fleeing soldiers of Japan from reaching the dense forested hills bordering that Valley. Our Company was engaged in many firefights with these retreating Japanese army units. My last combat missions were ended soon after the Dropping of the atomic bombs on the Japanese main land in early August. While my combat experience was very limited, I did come face-to-face with my own mortality during these few months of combat experience. When I came home in 1946, I remember the resentment I felt that my parents had to come with me before I could register to vote in my first National election. I was still under the legal voting age of 21.

On another subject, the Name of Medal of Honor winner, John J. Petrarcal is new to me. There is a famous ballad about the only Medal of Honor Winner about whom I had ever read, and that Medal of Honor went to Pvt.Roger Young, 148 Infantry Division,37th Division  for bravery on the Island of New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands in May of 1942.

I in no way want to detract from John Petrarcal, but I wonder, are there possibly two heroes to recall?   Citations: Personal experience and 37th Division written History. 

Harold A. Keiser

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.182.34.216  06:28, 9 November 2014

I moved this comment here from the article.   "