The Young Warriors (film)

The Young Warriors is a war film filmed in 1966 by Universal Pictures based on Richard Mathesons 1960 novel The Beardless Warriors that was the working title of the film. The novel was inspired by Mathesons own experiences as an 18yearold infantryman with the 87th Infantry Division in Germany in World War II. The film was directed by John Peyser who had directedepisodes of Combat and would later directepisodes of The Rat Patrol.

Europe 1944. A group of replacements are assigned to Sgt Cooleys squad and sent into battle. Initially frightened, Hacker grows to love killing but loses that feeling as well. He is promoted to Corporal and later given his own squad.Matheson recalled that following the release of his novel he had offers from Richard Zanuck who dropped his plans to film it when his father Darryl F. Zanuck was making The Longest Day and Fred Zinnemann. Zinnemann told Matheson that he wanted to make the film but had several other projects at the time Matheson refused to wait and turned him down. ........

Source: Wikipedia