Among these heroes the Jewish soldiers were equal to the best, as their comrades and commanders were quick to recognize. A typical attitude toward them was that of a lieutenant colonel, telling me a story of his first battle, when we were on shipboard coming back home. "I was rather nervous about that first time under fire," he told me, "because I had a number of foreign boys in one company and didn't know how they might behave. Among them was a little Jew who was medical man of the company, carrying bandages instead of weapons, but going over the top with the others, a restless fellow, always breaking orders and getting into trouble of some kind or another. And when I came to that company on the front line the first thing I saw was that little Jew jumping out of a shell hole and starting for the rear as fast as he could run. I pulled my revolver, ready to shoot him rather than have an example of cowardice set for the rest. But I was surprised to see him turn aside suddenly and jump into another shell hole, and when I went over there I found him hard at work bandaging up another wounded soldier. He was simply doing his duty under fire, absolutely without sign of fear as he tended the boys who were hurt. I was sorry I had misjudged him so badly and watched his work after that, with the result that I was later able to recommend him for a decoration." Ignorance, suspicion, ripening with knowledge into understanding and admiration--that was the usual course of events. I quote Colonel Whittlesey, commander of the famous "Lost Battalion" of the 308th Infantry, a New York unit with a very large proportion of Jews: "As to the Jewish boys in the Battalion, I cannot recall many of them by name, but certain figures stand out simply because they are so unexpected. The ordinary run of soldiers, whether Jews, Irish, or Americans--the big, husky chaps who simply do what they are expected to do--naturally pass from our memory. It is the odd figures who stick in your mind. There was one chap for example (Herschkovitz was his name) who seemed the worst possible material from which to make soldier-stuff. He was thick-set, stupid looking, extremely foreign, thoroughly East Side, and yet, one day when we were holding the bank of the Vesle, and it became necessary to send runners to communicate with our commands, Herschkovitz was the _only man_ who volunteered for the job. It was a nasty physical job. It would have been a difficult thing if it had not been under fire, because it meant cutting through under-brush, up hill and down hill. Under fire this became almost impossible, and the boys knew it, so none of them cared for the job, but Herschkovitz made the trip four times that day. What was it? Well, just plain pluck, that's all. There were a great many fellows of this type--East Siders of whom the regular army men expected nothing at all--but the 77th Division just seemed equal to anything...."