The feather did not make him invulnerable.

It reminded him who he was.

He served in the 103rd Infantry Division, known as the Cactus Division, and saw combat in Europe.

The division moved through France and later into Germany and Austria as Allied forces pushed against German positions.

Medicine Crow served as a scout, a role that required moving ahead, reading terrain, locating danger, and making judgments with limited information.

Scouting rewarded exactly the qualities his elders had emphasized in Montana: awareness, endurance, courage, and the ability to move without panic.

Modern infantry combat, however, was unlike the warfare described in old Crow stories.

Artillery could kill people who never saw the enemy.

Mines waited silently beneath roads and fields.

Machine guns turned open ground into traps.