As Congress considered the bill to extend the draft for another year, Allied victories kept piling up. So did pressure in Congress to keep 18-year-olds from being sent into combat without a Congress-prescribed period of training.
President Truman had told Congressional leaders he was against such a restriction. More emphatically, General Marshall wrote to the Senate Military Affairs Committee, spoke of the possibility of "disaster," said "no restrictions should be placed by law on the time when soldiers may enter combat."
Last week, after listening to George Marshall's soldierly warning, the Senate threw out a proposal to require a year's pre-combat training...
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