The World War II pay raise that was granted to U.S. Army combat infantrymen in the summer of 1944 did not extend to the front-line medic for reasons involving the Geneva Convention Rules of War. This triggered a number of infantrymen to write kind words regarding the medics while at the same time condemning the Geneva restrictions:
"...I've seen the medics in action and I take my hat off to them. Most of them have more guts then us guys with the rifles...I've seen them dash into cross-fire that would cut a man to ribbons to help a guy who was in bad shape. I say give them all the credit they deserve."
"So they've given up."
"They're finally done in, and the rat is dead in an alley back of the the Wilhelmstrasse."
"Take a Bow, GI - take a bow, little guy."
"Far-flung ordinary men, unspectacular but free, rousing out of their habits and their homes - got up early one morning, flexed their muscles, learned the manual of arms (as amateurs) and set out across perilous oceans to whop the bejeepers out of the professionals."
"And they did."
This article appeared two days before the German capitulation; the Allies were in Berlin, Hitler was dead and the Pentagon was planning to send some men home while shipping a million off to fight the Japanese. This tiny notice reported that the G.I. Bill of Rights was passed Congress, was now enacted into law. A list of all the original (1944) veteran's benefits are listed for a quick read.The readers of YANK were the intended beneficiaries of this legislation and it seems terribly ironic that this news item was granted such a minute space in the magazine.
No matter how you slice it, few acts of Congress have left such a beneficial mark across the American landscape as this one. Here is an article from 1943, the year everything changed for the Axis. The article explains all that was involved with the stout-hearted raid on the Ploesti oil fields in Rumania. 177 American bombers were sent to do the job.
"From Ploesti, the Nazis extracted oil and oil products which maintained the entire German and Italian fleets, and third of the whole German air force in Russia. Around the Ploesti installations, the Germans had raised a forest of antiaircraft guns of large and small calibers. They had built blast walls around plants' vital parts and spotted airdromes from which fighters could rise to intercept our bombers." | 
