Mr. Puckett was a remarkable man, my political and journalistic mentor.  A disabled vet, he was in the battle of Tobruk, absolutely devoted to General George Patton.  My assignment for his history class was to read the biography of Patton and Patton’s Last Days for credit.  He was captured by the Germans and spent a year or so in a Nazi POW camp, where he was horribly disfigured via beatings and abuse.  He escaped and joined back up with Patton.  When Patton liberated the various concentration camps, he would send Mr. Puckett in to ‘handle’ the victims of Nazi human experimentation.  Patton couldn’t stomach what he found and saw.  The experience left Mr. P. an alcoholic.  Several times I asked him about what he found (rashness of youth and all that).  He would never tell me other than, “They were no longer human.”  He told how he would go in and put a gun to their heads, saying it was the most humane thing he could do.