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Show Rest Not Welcomed by Sergeant Buck came to the little group of old-timers in the company with whom I was standing, to say goodbye. good-bye. You'd have thought he was leaving forever. He shook hands all around, and his smile seemed sick and vulnerable. He was a man stalling stall-ing off his departure. He said. "Well, good luck to you all." And .then he said. "I'll be back In Just five days." He said goodbye all around and slowly started away. I walked with him toward the truck in the dusk. He kept his eyes on the ground, and I think he would have cried If he knew how, and he said to me very quietly: 'This is the first battle I've ever missed that this battalion has been in. Even when I was in the hospital hos-pital they were in bivouac. |