Bradley beam., 1943-10-16
By Sgt. Ralph G. Martin
ALGIERS (By Wireless)

tired eyes pointed to small mound of earth projecting above the soft shoulder of the road. "That's a mine," he said; "it's sloppy. job; they must have been in a hurry"
 It was somewhere near Salerno. He turned around, looked at his nine jeeps spread out at proper in tervals on the side of the road.
 ''This morning I had ten jeeps," :" he said. "Nine jeep swent over the bypass and nothing happened. The tenth one ran over a Tellar mine and blew up." ... -..
 His tough, young face twisted a little. "That jeep wasn't sup posed to blow up, mine was.
 The lieutenant was right. His jeep was bracketed Italy's and supposed to blow up. He sat in the front seat of the first jeep, the "point of reconnaissance" Out in the field the lieutenant is al- ways first. He is bait for the first bullet, the first machine gun burst, the first hand grenade that might be thrown.
 A sergeant came up carrying a mine sweeper which looked like a vacuum cleaner.
 "The side of the road is lousy with mines, lieutenant" he said in a weary voice. "But we are getting them cleaned up pretty quick now. I guess we'll be all done in half an hour."
 "Okay, Joey, that's swell" the looey said; and the sergeant went back to the mines.
 This wasn't in the Army rule book. Back in the States the man. ual said that officers and enlisted men would address each other by the proper rank, that enlisted men would salute the officers before and after talking with them, that en- listed men would say "sir." But that was back in the States or in the rear echelon. Up front the lieu tenant and his platoon are small family and the looey is mother and father. Before he even thinks about himself he makes sure that the bivouac area is the best possible one, that the men take their ata- brine pills, that they get their cig- arette and candy ration every week, that their mails are sent out right away. shat they get the best food rations available.
 Sometimes it isn't SO easy. Deep in the hills behind Troina, in Sicily, battalion was fighting forty eight hours without rations. It was five miles to the nearest food dump five miles over a winding, twist ing ribbon of road hugging a noun tain with German snipers looking down at you from high ground. You could travel only at night and had to use mules.
 Lieut.. John Simons from Los An geles, Calif., started out with fif- teen men and twelve mules. The lieutenant led his men over lap ping rocks, falling into holes, run- ming through machine-gun fire. Be- fore they came back to the outfit they had lost two men and four mules. But the officer had brought back food for his men.
 It is a deep, warm thing-this comradeship between a lieutenant and his men, especially in a pla- toon where there are only four squads, twelve men to a squad. You see it typified best of all when there is mail call. Often it is 8 very brief mail call. Some Joe will get two or three letters, and most of the men, including the looey, won't get any. You'll see the lucky soldier read his letters and then re- read them a couple of times with everybody looking at him envious- ly. Then finally the soldier will look at the lieutenant and hand him the letters and say "Here, lieutenant, you want to read the funny things that the missus says-folks back home are being rationed to only