Army Attack #44

Cpl. Joe Nixon arrives in New Guinea as a nervous wreck—a soldier who faints at needles and doubts he'll survive combat—but when the first firefight erupts in September 1942, something shifts in him. After accidentally being shoved into action by the narrator, a medic named Dawes, Nixon discovers an unexpected talent for killing that transforms him from coward to expert marksman, though the cost of that transformation may be his sanity. Dawes watches in horror as Nixon evolves into something neither quite soldier nor quite human, laughing in the chaos of battle as the line between courage and madness blurs.

A lone infantryman discovers a high vantage point overlooking the battlefield and, armed with nothing but his rifle, begins picking off enemy forces to hold back their advance. When an American helicopter spots him hours later, his desperate stand proves to have bought precious time for reinforcements to move into position. This 1966 war story delivers a tense portrait of one soldier's unexpected heroism under fire.

U.S. Army Rangers land covertly off the French coast to strike at Nazi occupation forces in "Night Attack," a three-page war story from 1966. Operating with surgical precision under cover of darkness, the specially trained soldiers target Gestapo interrogators and German barracks, giving hope to the oppressed French underground. When the smoke clears and the Americans slip back into the night, the victims of Nazi terror finally have reason to believe their suffering will soon end.