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Anything, Anywhere, Anytime bar Nothing. At 56 Col. Paddy Flint was too old for a front-line infantry command. Flint joined the 39th Infantry Regiment in Sicily, and developed the 39th into an exemplary combat formation.

During the Normandy invasion, while advancing on the Saint-Lô-Périers road, Paddy’s outfit was held up by heavy mortar fire. Leading from his customary place on the front, the Colonel and a rifle patrol soon found the trouble. Colonel Flint reported by radio over the walkie-talkie: “Have spotted pillbox. Will start them cooking.”

He called for a tank, and rode atop it in a rain of fire as it sprayed the hedgerows. During the attack, the tank driver was wounded, stopping it, whereupon Paddy crawled down, and went forward on foot with his men. As he led the patrol into the shelter of a farmhouse he was hit by a sniper’s bullet. Aid men soon came up, loaded the Colonel on a stretcher, and as they started for the rear, one of men told him: “Remember, Paddy, you can’t kill an Irishman—you can only make him mad.” Colonel Flint smiled. On the next day, 24 July 1944, he died of his wounds.

Colonel Flint is buried at Section 2, Site 310 at the Arlington National Cemetery.