Excerpts from the personal wartime journal of PFC Max L. Karas, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division:

August 1 1942 Entry written during the cattle truck ride from Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania to New York City.

Well, Here I go. Or I guess I should say here WE go, since I am part of a real squad now. It's me and this group of 7 or 8 other guys I've been training with from now until the end of the war, whenever that's gonna be. The guys here in this truck with me are:

-Gus Meister from Brooklyn, a big house of a guy who can carry that big heavy BAR gun he uses around like a baseball bat. Good guy,even he doesn't know when to shut up sometimes, like when the NCO's are in earshot. More on that later.
-Al Greely, a farmboy from Maine, he talks about hunting a lot, and always has a Downeaster joke ready to throw in when you comment about anything. For some reason we got a lot of guys from Maine in our squad.It must be boring up there, so maybe they all enlisted. We also have:
-Malcolm Craigue, our medic, who served in Africa with the American Field Service for the Brits before he signed up for the army. A good guy to have around you when the shooting starts.
-Pascal Dubois,he's from so far up north in Maine he's practically Canadian, and speaks Canadian French. At least he knows enough to shut up when the brass is around. He loves working on jeeps and trucks.
-Percival "Perc" Crown-and-Something(I'm still not sure what the heck his last name is)the mystery man of the squad. He says he's from around Boston, but he talks like a Brit, and throws money around like only those guys that are born rich do. But I will say for him,at least when he does it, he does it to ensure he and everyone around him who's a decent guy has a good time, and not just to show off. We've sure needed that But if he's some rich Brit, what the heck is he doing as a private in the U.S.Army?
-Lastly, we have our squad leader in the truck with us, Sgt. Lee Lewis, a midwesterner like me(he's lived up in Wisconsin and Minnesota). He's about as hard-boiled as they come. He served in the first war like my father did, so he's got to be at least 40, but he's still solid as a rock. He's pushed us hard during training, but says if he didn't, none of us would make it back home in one piece, himself included. He tells us if he gets bumped off over there, its not gonna be because one of us didn't know what to do when the shooting started. I'm very glad to have someone like him in charge, because he knows what he's doing. He's the kind of NCO you don't mind taking orders from, because he doesn't play any favorites, For a squad leader, we could have done a lot, lot worse. I want to make it back home in one piece, and something tells me if we all listen to Sgt. Lewis, we just might. "What would Sarge do?" has become a common phrase amongst the squad whenever we are faced with a decision. Also, the phrase "What would Sarge do to us if we do something really dumb?" seems to be catching on too. More on that later.