Thomas looked around and tried not to let his duty turn him bitter. These were good men, and he would not leave them behind. He had chosen this, an unselfish life. ↗
When they ran out of cadre men they gave me my very own platoon and said, 'Here are 63 men, try to keep as many of them alive as you possibly can.' That was one of the more harrowing experiences of my life. ↗
We had times in '66 and '67 when we would pick up a platoon of privates out of the receiving barracks the week before we even graduated the platoon that we were on! ↗
The only kind of movement you could make in the Navy was to be a platoon leader or one of those kinds of things as you got more senior in your Navy career. ↗
I saw a great many men die afterwards, some suffering horribly, but I do not recall any death that affected me quite so much as that of this first victim in my platoon. ↗
We started at once to dig our trenches, half of my platoon stepping forward abreast, the men being placed an arm's length apart. After laying their rifles down, barrels pointing to the enemy, a line was drawn behind the row of rifles and parallel to it. ↗
I think as a rifle platoon and company commander your view is about 1,000 meters in front of you and you hope you can cover that ground and not have to back up and give it up again. ↗
Rough Riders took 13 weeks to shoot, plus a week of training. The same guy trained us trained the cast in Platoon. Except, instead of radios, we used bugles to signal. ↗
