It was a frozen Christmas Day in 1949, in the elastic aftermath of World War II, when a dozen U.S. soldiers with the 27th Infantry Regiment "Wolfhounds" accompanied a Red Cross representative to the Holy Family orphanage, tucked into the snowy streets in Osaka, Japan.
But it was there that the battle-hardened men saw something that broke them. The decaying home was a reeking, underfunded place overstuffed with barefoot, tiny children -- their limbs like sticks beneath their ragged clothes.Those were raw flashes that helped the likes of Sgt.
Hugh Francis Xavior O'Reilly -- on his third enlistment and still embittered about the enemy -- see the Japanese with a fresh set of eyes.