HEROES: Glimpse of an Epic

Last week the pictures arrived, and U.S. citizens could see for themselves how Lieut. General Joseph W. Stilwell, 59, had looked on his heroic cross-country march from Burma last May.

They could see him in old khaki pants and shirt and a battered campaign hat, leading his company of 117 men & women up a single-file jungle path (see cut). They could see him sitting on a log repairing his tommy-gun with expert fingers—cigaret between his lips, his big American feet dangling awkwardly from skinny shanks, hat tilted back.

He did not look like a Napoleonic commander, performing a miracle...

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