Private First Class Herrera's company landed in Italy, by this time largely under Allied control, as part of the 142nd Infantry in the summer of 1944. That fall they landed in France at Marseille and took a troop train to the front. By the end of the year, as his unit reached France, it began to encounter resistance from the retreating Germans. When the fighting became heavy by the spring of 1945, Herrera had to concede a grudging respect for the enemy, regarding them as "muy machos."