Sorry I wasn’t clear that I was buttressing your post by trying to illustrate for those that didn’t get the news about the SAW or didn’t know what it was and its importance to the defense.
His prep for desertion/defection is being soft pedaled as though he just happened to see a butterfly and sort of, kinda flaked in following it, all the while intending to return but darn those rabbits.
Thanks... I didn’t know he was the squad auto weapons guy. That makes it even worse.
They could have all been slaughtered in their sleep while he slinked off into the night.
Imagine someone on Iwo Jima, or Saipan, or Peleliu doing that, laying down the BAR or the M 1919 to desert to the Japanese... And now imagine what would happen to the bast*rd when we got him back - IF the Japs didn’t behead him first.
Those were better days, with better people.