Spartanburg, S.C. was torn between pride and embarrassment this autumn when a local boy named Thomas Eugene Atkins came home a hero. Few soldiers of World War II had fought more gallantlywith his hip shattered by a bullet, the rest of his platoon dead around him in the Luzon jungles, quiet, steady-eyed Pfc. Gene Atkins had kept "taking a sight" on Jap attackers, had killed 44 of them. He had been flown home on a bomber to meet the President and get the Congressional Medal of Honor. But when he got back to Spartanburg, the hero had to be viewed...
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