ARMED FORCES: A Mean & Cruel Heart

One was a punch-press operator, another was a truck driver; the rest were Regular soldiers, a warehouseman, a baker, a gas worker, a mechanic, three unemployed civilians and a student. They wore sports shirts mostly, open at the neck with the sleeves rolled up, and they had come to Governors Island in New York Harbor from distant places—Denver and Detroit, Cottonwood, Ala., and Hanging Rock, Ohio —for a long-awaited Army reunion. Center of the reunion: a clean-looking young Regular Army sergeant who smiled winningly beneath a mop of golden hair.

The occasion...

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