On August 3, 1943, the day that General George S. Patton, Jr., learned that his superior, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was to award him the Distinguished Service Cross for “extraordinary heroism” at Gela on July 11, he called at the 15th Evacuation Hospital near Nicosia in Sicily. One patient he encountered was Private Charles H. Kuhl of the 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Division.
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Seeing no visible wounds, Patton asked the soldier why he was in the hospital. The soldier responded that he was not wounded but, “I guess I can’t take it.” Patton called Kuhl a coward and ordered him out of the tent. When the terrified soldier remained motionless, Patton “slapped his face with a glove, raised him to his feet by the collar of his shirt and pushed him out of the tent with a final kick in the rear.”
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