I am very thankful that my dad didnt see alot of combat. He told me that the closest to combat he came was depth charging subs on several occasions. My uncles were another story however. His two older brothers both saw combat. The oldest brother was wounded in Europe and the next oldest served on a destroyer in the South Pacific. My uncle Herman (my dad's sister's husband) served from the day after DDay until 1946. His Nebraska National Guard unit won the most Presidential Unit Citations of any in the war. Nebraska ETV made a documentary about him and his buddies that they show every Memorial Day weekend. That guy had terrible violent nightmares until the day he died at age 84. (He tried to strangle my aunt in his sleep when he was in his sixties because he thought he was being attacked by a Nazi soldier) A good neighborhood friend of my dad and uncles (who was also a great family friend until he died a few years ago) got hit by a shell in France. He layed unconscious in a ditch for two days until the corpse unit came along to collect his body and found that he was still alive. He got one of the first experimental knee replacements and went on to farm until he was in his 70's. I guess my point is that I am glad that my pop didnt have to go through all that because of the decision that Truman made. Not to mention I got to be born.
My great uncle Delbert was wounded by a machine gun in the Battle of the Bulge while his platoon was retreating. They were sure he was dead, and he couldn't move or shout at first, so they left him for dead. He could hear the crunch of their boots as they ran away. He's still alive today.