Word: greekness
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Georgios Papageorgiou of Zoumerka is a private in the Greek army, 9th division, 43rd brigade. He can hardly remember a time when there was peace in his country. He has fought the Italians and the Germans, now he fights the Communists. A veteran of two years' warfare against the Red guerrillas, he has seen action at Konitsa, in Epirus, in the Grammos mountains, in the Peloponnesus. He does not know what became of his family; like hundreds & thousands of other Greeks, they fled from Red terror. They may be in a refugee camp; they may be dead. Some...
Last week, Private Papageorgiou's heart was high, his spirits soaring. The Greek army was slowly beating back the Communist guerrillas who, more than once, had been close to engulfing the whole country. Georgios and 200,000 Greek soldiers like him had accomplished this feat with the help of a soldier from a foreign land with a heart every bit as stout as theirs. He was Lieut. General James Alward Van Fleet, combat infantryman, sometime U.S. division and corps commander and now head of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory and Planning Group (JUSMAPG) in Greece...
...Fleet commands neither Private Papageorgiou nor any other Greek soldier. His job is to give advice and to supervise the flow of U.S. arms and supplies (nearly $300,000,000 had been authorized by December 1948) to their army. But he has given the Greeks a great deal more than that. He has given them hope...
Last week, the guerrillas' 105th brigade attacked government positions near Florina. It might be a diversionary attack to harass Greek army groups successfully mopping up Red pockets in central Greece, or it might be the beginning of a major spring offensive by the Communists. At any rate, the Greek army, which has heeded Soldier Van Fleet's advice, was ready. The attackers at Fiorina were driven back, with government troops in hot pursuit...
...floundering Greek army seemed to have bogged down in a defensive war, wasted men to garrison towns against Communist hit & run attacks. The government commanders needed to be shaken out of lethargy, timidity, bickering, and antiquated tactical ideas. By unrelenting pressure, Van Fleet has changed their ways...