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Nelson was drafted into the U.S. Army on July 14, 1941, from Fort Cook, Nebraska, and entered World War II with Foxtrot Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd ID. During his time with his unit, Nelson took part in Operation Torch in Morocco. Following the intense fighting in Northern Africa, Nelson also took part in Operation Husky in Sicily and Operations Avalanche and Shingle in Italy. [snip] According to Nelson, he had run out of ammunition, ran a couple hundred yards under enemy fire, climbed on top of an abandoned German tank and fired the machine gun at the...

FORT STEWART, GA (WTOC) - The man who commands the Third Infantry Division returned home to the Coastal Empire with more than 200 soldiers Monday. Major General Rick Lynch reflected on his division's success in Iraq and the support they felt from being back at home. "In the course of life, you get a choice between reading history and making history, and by God, we made history over the past 15 months," he said to hundreds of family members and soldiers at Fort Stewart Monday. Minutes earlier at Hunter Army Airfield, he talked about the history Third Infantry made in...

The 3rd Infantry Division soldiers who stormed Baghdad flew home Monday, completing a nine-month deployment to the Persian Gulf. The last of the division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team landed at Hunter Army Airfield to turn in their weapons and the rest of their combat gear before being reunited with their families. Only the division's 1st Brigade remains in Iraq, and it is scheduled to begin heading home in the next few weeks. The division's soldiers were the first to cross into Baghdad on April 7, then held the city until they were reinforced by Marines three days later. The unit's...