Disbanding

From the October, 1945 muster roll of 1/24.

Major Irving Schechter, the last battalion commander, closed the accounts of the handful of men remaining in the battalion seventy years ago today. Most had already transferred away. The younger replacements with time to go on their enlistments were now with service and supply units. The older veterans with enough points were on their way to depots and navy yards near their hometowns for processing and discharge–many, indeed, were already adjusting back into civilian life. Then there were those in hospitals, still bedridden, who would wait months or years for discharge. And the dead, 316 of them, who would remain on Namur, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima until they were returned home, if they were returned at all.

Disbanding 1/24 ended one set of stories, and began thousands of new ones–each bearing the marks of the war years, but as individual as the veterans that led them.