under battles and campaigns ( this part is garbled looks like co 33&40 WD 45 )
That is probably a reference to a General Order. The form usually lists a General Order that awarded him his decorations such as Bronze Star Medal. I don't have one in front of me but it was usually in the form of "GO 25 36ID 45" which was the number of the order, the issuing HQ and the Year it was issued. I think you can order a copy of these---if they have it with the division's records.
Does anyone know if back then they still took basic training photo?
Many units had group photos made during training or before going overseas. These are those "yard-long photos" that contained all the members of a company.
For units that trained early in 1941-1942, they sometimes printed photo albums that contained many individual photos. But I'm not sure if they took individual photos of each soldier to keep in their records.
I would try to be persistant about the records. Marion, I think it was, had a story about that. But they may have lost his records in the fire but that would still have sufficient records to pay benefits.
Steve