When Your Number's Up

This World War II story is a fictionalized account of what happened to some of the country's brightest teenagers. A select group of high-IQ soldiers were chosen for university training in an Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). They would become the engineers, the linguists and the medics needed for a long war. When infantry casualties mounted and draft boards came up short, the program came to a sudden halt and these special soldiers were unceremoniously deployed to combat divisions. The story follows four soldiers who join an armored infantry division whose fatalistic maxim is "when your number's up, it's up."