Fightin' Army #62

Sgt. Red McGraw and his squad face German armor and air attacks while serving under General Patton in North Africa during the height of Rommel's campaign, but when McGraw is left behind after a brutal firefight, he must rely on quick thinking and nerve to survive the desert and find his way back to allied lines. This tense 1965 war story captures the chaos and desperation of desert combat, where a soldier's wits can matter as much as his weapons.

Successive generations of young Americans answer the call to arms, and through grueling basic training—endless marches, rigorous courses, and the unforgiving discipline of drill sergeants—they transform from untested recruits into capable fighting men ready to face whatever enemy confronts the nation.

When a buck private with a mean streak clashes with Captain J.J. Finerty in a Georgia Army camp, their bitter rivalry follows them all the way through basic training, Sicily, and beyond—but when they find themselves trapped deep inside a Nazi fortification with enemy fire closing in, the two men who've hated each other since day one discover they might be each other's only chance of survival. Cullen learns that Finerty's relentless pursuit of excellence has forged him into a soldier, not a tyrant, and as enemy guns rain down around them in the belly of the Maginot Line, their old grudges become a luxury neither can afford.

Captain Shuri Yagato, a decorated hero of the Japanese Imperial Marines, comes face to face with U.S. Army soldier Harry Wislewski in the New Guinea jungle—a formidable opponent armed with martial prowess and military skill. When Wislewski realizes the jungle is full of enemy soldiers, he calls for his platoon to join the fight. This is a tense wartime confrontation between two soldiers on opposite sides of the Pacific theater.

A nearsighted quartermaster's clerk with dreams of combat, Willie Mankowitz repeatedly sneaks away from his desk assignment to see action—first hitching rides with tank crews, then slipping into the Normandy invasion, and finally joining infantry units at the hottest points of the European campaign. His commanding officer threatens court-martial for his constant AWOL runs, but Willie's battlefield courage catches the attention of higher-ranking officers who see something his own C.O. refuses to acknowledge. When the opportunity finally comes to transfer into a combat unit where he belongs, Mankowitz discovers that sometimes the right place finds you.

When an infantryman charges an enemy slope defended by machine guns and entrenched positions, raw firepower and combat skills become the measure of bravery—but "The Brave Ones" argues that true courage belongs to those who face the same deadly hail of bullets with no weapons and no armor to hide behind. The medics who move through the carnage to tend the fallen warriors embody a different kind of heroism, one born not from anger but from the willingness to walk into hell itself to save a life.