The great Duke of Wellington justly remarked, “Believe me, not every man who wears a military uniform is a hero.” In all armies, soldiers serving with forward combat units shared a contempt for the much larger number of men in the rear areas who fulfilled roles in which they faced negligible risk: the infantry bore 90 percent of global army casualties. An American or British rifleman who entered France in June 1944 faced a 60 percent prospect of being killed or wounded before the end of the campaign, rising to 70 percent for officers. Armoured and artillery units suffered much smaller
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