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Speirs gave Guth the details on the Bronze Star he was entitled to for participation in Normandy, Holland, and Belgium, and promised to inform him as soon as it came through. He added a postscript: "Clark is Armorer Artificer just now鈥攕ent Burlingame back to his platoon鈥攈e couldn't keep your Kraut generator going! We have regular electricity and hot water here in Austria.
"By the way, you can wear your 'Presidential Unit Citation' ribbon and an Oak Leaf Cluster on it no matter what outfit you are in鈥攜ou earned it with the 101 A/B."
The company was breaking up. General Taylor ordered all high point men who had not yet been rotated home to be transferred to the 501, stationed in Berchtesgaden. The 501st was being inactivated and was to serve as a vehicle to transport all high-point men from the division back to the United States for discharge. Others from the old company were in hospital or already discharged. Recruits who had joined up in Mourmelon or Haguenau were now regarded as veterans.
General Taylor made a trip to the States,- when he returned toward the end of June, he announced that the 101st was to be redeployed to the Pacific, after a winter furlough in the States. Meanwhile the War Department insisted that the division undergo a full training regime, a critical process if it was to go into combat again, as more than three-quarters of the division was made up of recruits.
So close-order drill and calisthenics became the order of the day again, along with nomenclature of the M-l, nomenclature and functioning of the BAR, and nomenclature and functioning of the carbine. A road march. Arm and hand signals. Squad tactics. Barracks inspection. Mess kit inspection. Military courtesy and discipline. First aid and sanitation. Clothing check. Map reading. Dry run with the rifle. One solid week of triangulation. Firing on the range. "Thus it went," Webster wrote, "and I with it, in mounting disgust."
Lieutenant Peacock returned, more chickenshit than ever. "We suffered his excesses of training to such a degree," Webster wrote, "that the men who had known him in Holland and Bastogne hated even to look at him. I was so mad and exasperated that, if I had possessed fewer than 85 points, I would have volunteered to go straight to Japan and fight, rather than put up with another day's basic under Peacock."
By the middle of July every veteran of Normandy was gone, except the long-suffering Webster, who still could not get the adjutant to accept his point total. Colonel Sink had given the high-point men a farewell speech: "It is with mingled feelings that your regimental commander observes the departure of you fine officers and men. He is happy for each of you. You have worked and fought and won the right to return to your homes and to your friends.
"I am sorry to see you go, because you are friends and comrades-at-arms.
"Most of you have caught hell at one time or another from me. I hope you considered it just hell and fair. It was never intended to be otherwise.