Word: 314th
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...castle stands deep within the Ardennes Forest, and in it dwells an aging nobleman who broods over his ancient lineage, his child-wife, and his priceless art collection. It is also occupied by the 314th Replacement Cadre, a foul-spoken band of American fighting boon-dogglers, including a cowboy, an Indian, a composer, a Negro intellectual, an art historian and an ex-preacher. The cadre is commanded by a sex-and-glory-hungry major. It is December 1944, the Germans are preparing to launch the Battle of the Bulge, and the castle bars the road to Bastogne...
...minds of all, the castle is the symbol and focus for uneasy atavistic dreams of combat. Then the big guns begin to sound. Out of the falling snow, through a village straight out of a Breughel painting, comes the American army in headlong retreat, and the misfits of the 314th find themselves the only organized defense short of the Meuse. Bumbling and burlesquing the role of soldiers, they fight. For what? A confused dream, a bit of bread, a friend, a stone wall, a laugh...