Word: platooner
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...sprawled around his body bore testimony to the ferocity of the 23-year-old air cavalryman's last fight to shield five wounded comrades. As the only member of his six-man squad left unhurt by the Viet Cong's first surprise onslaught, Stewart alone battled a platoon for four hours, beating back three savage assaults. When his M-16 rifle was empty, Stewart crawled through a barrage of bullets to retrieve ammunition that his helpless buddies could not fire; when grenades landed spluttering in their midst, he hurled them back; when American reinforcements counterattacked, Stewart rushed...
Howard and his platoon of 17 Marine scouts were trapped on the grassy slopes of Hill 488, deep inside Viet Cong territory south of Danang soon after midnight on June 15, 1966. For six hours, an entire North Vietnamese battalion of more than 350 men tried to dislodge them with mortars, machine guns and grenades. Every American was wounded, some in hand-to-hand combat in which Marines clubbed attackers with rifle butts or hacked them with knives. At least 48 of the Communists were killed by the platoon; many others were lost when Howard summoned up artillery...
House to hear the President extol their leader's "towering valor." But the grizzled, close-cropped veteran of 17 years in the corps could only point to his platoon and mumble: "That's the guys who did it right there...
...says, "F.D.R. would have waited a week" for similar results. That speed, of course, makes it all the more tempting for the President and his key advisers, most notably Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, to run the war at every level, down to platoon and squad actions...
Every morning for three days, the string of cars crammed with grim-faced men streamed through Detroit's traffic to pull up in front of a different corporate doorway. Each time, a solemn platoon spilled from the convoy, headed by a familiar red-haired figure. A holdup? That was the way some people looked at it. For the red-haired leader was United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther, and he was paying his now familiar triennial call on the nation's Big Three automakers to open negotiations for new contracts...