Company K-335, during six months of combat from November 10, 1944 to May 8, 1945 participated in seven major battles: Lindern in the Siegfried Line; the counter-reconnaissance patrol involving the villages of Tellin, Bure, and Grupont, Belgium and Givet, France in defense of Rochefort and Marche-en-Femenne during the Battle of the Bulge; Devantave and Ourthe, Belgium during the Bulge counterattack; the crossing of the Roer River, the battle of Hoven, and the breakthrough to the Rhine; the crossing of the Weser River and the battle of Eisbergen; and the last battle of the war at Restorf-Pevestorf near the Elbe River forty-five kilometers from Berlin.

The company suffered 414 casualties. Forty-two men were killed in action or died of wounds, 166 were wounded, 116 were evacuated for illness, and 90 were reported missing in action (most became prisoners of war). Of 191 men who left the Port of New York in September, 1944, only eighteen fought in every battle and made it to the Elble unscathed. Although all except the ill-fated forty-two came home, our psyches were forever altered. For most of us the war has never ended. Reader's of "Dear Captain, et al." will gain some understanding of why we can never forget.