Skip Navigation NPR News Now the Hell Will Start ()  Excerpt:
'Now the Hell Will Start'  by Brendan I. Koerner Jun 6, 2008
Share this  It is best to use discretion when confronting an
emotionally shattered man, especially if he's holding a
semiautomatic rifle. Lieutenant Harold Cady should have heeded
that commonsense advice on the morning of March 5, 1944. But
several fellow soldiers were watching as he drew near Private
Herman Perry, a sobbing, trembling GI armed with a .30-caliber
M1. Cady couldn't have the spectators thinking he was soft, or
his hard-ass reputation would be ruined. He'd show them he could
quell this bad egg Perry, loaded rifle be damned.  Perry was
walking toward the muddy roadside, a few dozen yards from Cady's
parked jeep. He glanced over his shoulder and spied the
onrushing lieutenant. "Get back!" Perry yelled. "Get back!"
Cady had left his pistol at the battalion's camp, near the
Burmese village of Tagap Ga. But he didn't appear fazed by his
lack of firepower: he advanced to within