The eighteen-year-olds who filled the ranks of the 86th Blackhawk Division were headed for college or the Air Force when they were ordered into the infantry. Their non-commissioned officer superiors made up for their limited formal schooling by street smarts acquired during work on farms and factories all over the country.
Sociologists and military historians might have forecast a disastrous future for such a topsy-turvy composition of 15,000 infantry troops. But somehow it worked. The 86th Division, named after a brave military leader of the Sauk Indians, trained in Louisiana and...