Native of Chicago, Herbert Sobel remains nine years in a military school, he serves in both the U.S. National Guard and the Military Police based in Fort Riley, Kansas .

He is called to "active duty" as an officer one year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

He is the commander of the company during at the training ground of Toccoa between 1942 and 1943, and he organizes extremely difficult training sessions for the men of the Easy.

But it appears very quickly that if Herbert is an excellent organizer and coach, he is not popular within his company and he excels not during some trainings. The General Staff then decides to replace him with the young officer Thomas Meehan.