Heroism, unraveled

Discovering a lie decades later

I’ve been struggling with a personal mystery for two months.

It began with the news that the last survivor of the famed World War II unit, Merrill’s Marauders, died at the end of December. He was 99, and in his youth fought in the jungles of Burma with the 5307th Composite Unit, popularly renamed for its commander, Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill.

It seemed n…