Being the Best

[T]hey knew they were going into combat, and they did not want to go in with poorly trained, poorly conditioned, poorly motivated draftees on either side of them.

This quote appears in the first chapter, “We Wanted Those Wings,” and essentially explains the prime reason the men of Easy Company volunteered for the Army's first-ever, experimental paratrooper regiment, the 101st Airborne. Being among the best logically increased their odds of surviving the war. The preparation of a regiment to jump from airplanes into enemy territory to fight the Germans head-on had to be rigorous for tasks of extreme difficulty that they will surely face. It begins with basic training, where leaders work the men until they are dead tired. This approach is purposefully harsh as it allows leaders to see who falls out, essentially letting the weak weed themselves from the bunch. Those who can’t endure the physical regimen find themselves shipped out, ensuring only the strongest remain. During more complex training, the men must perform difficult maneuvers in awkward situations and under duress. The paratrooper volunteers who can’t handle this portion of the training continue their enlistment elsewhere in the Army. Finally, those who make it through training have the mindset and mental toughness to be the best of the best and will make excellent soldiers. The men’s safety depends on their comrades’ execution and skill. 

In late July . . . the 2d Battalion . . . received a commendation . . . for ‘splendid aggressive action, sound tactical doctrine, and obviously well trained individuals.’

The quote is spoken by Major General William C. Lee, commander of the 101st, in the second chapter, “Stand Up and Hook Up,” when evaluating Easy Company’s performance during maneuvers held in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana from July 5 to July 15, 1943. During the maneuvers, Easy Company’s general level of excellence was on full display. The maneuvers featured extended night marches, wading through cold streams, and navigating through difficult terrain which Captain Herbert Sobel, Easy’s commanding officer at the time, made sure to prepare his men to endure. The suffering that Captain Sobel forced upon the men of Easy Company would prepare them to excel in nearly every location the company entered throughout the war. While most people might have viewed Sobel’s training methods as over the top and cruel, the men of Easy Company believed the extraordinary suffering perpetrated by Captain Sobel was an integral part of their preparation for the battles they faced. This opinion, and the skills that resulted from it, was the one thing they all had in common once training was complete. 

‘After seeing the 506th,’ he said, ‘I pity the Germans.’

The quote is uttered in Chapter 3, “Duties of the Latrine Orderly,” by General Bernard Law Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group, to which the 101st Airborne is attached. He came to Chilton Foliat to inspect the 101st Airborne PIR. Easy Company and the rest of their division had been training intensely since their arrival. Their level of physical fitness is extraordinary, enabling them to parachute out of an airplane, hit the ground running while collapsing their chutes, and then assemble their rifles, all in one smooth motion. Upon the culmination of the inspection, the general gathers the men of Easy Company around his Jeep and informs them of what he thought. He confidently states that Germany is going to have serious problems once Easy Company and the 101st Airborne joined the battle. This is high praise for the men of Easy Company, though in no case a limited occurrence. These men had made a habit of impressing, and they regularly enjoyed exultations from high-ranking officials. 

The Brotherhood Mindset

‘The three of us, Jake, Joe, and I, became . . . an entity. There were many entities in our close-knit organizations. . . . Often, three such entities would make a squad, with incredible results in combat. They would literally insist on going hungry for one another, freezing for one another, dying for one another.’

This quote by Private Kurt Gabel of the 513th PIR appears in Chapter 1, “We Wanted Those Wings,” and is a testament to the bonds forged by the men who served in the parachute regiments. This was the result of so many shared experiences during basic training and afterward in jump training too. Every time the men of Easy Company engaged in another exercise or some new routine of training with each other, they became even closer than friends, bonding like brothers and working as one like comrades. Their trust in and knowledge of one another created a total unity that would keep them safe and help them reach their goal. They listened to each other’s life stories, knew where and why they had volunteered, and understood what each other’s capabilities were. They were developing into a unit that would protect each other at all costs. The comradeship formed during this period would outlast the battlefield and support them for the rest of their lives.

‘I could see a silhouette at night,’ Gordon said, ‘and tell you who it was. I could tell you by the way he wore his hat, how the helmet sat on his head, how he slung his rifle.’

This quote appears in Chapter 3, “Duties of the Latrine Orderly,” as Gordon Carson remembers the night training he and his brother soldiers performed and the effect it had. Not only were they familiar with one another by day, but they could recognize each other at night as well. This essential skill is even more indispensable in the kind of night paratroop drops where complete darkness was required to preserve the element of surprise. The kind of attention to detail required to learn 150 men’s mannerisms and how they carried themselves indicates both the men of Easy Company’s close-quarter living and their close-knit community. There was a bond of trust that one could call intimate, a comradeship that existed among the men of Easy Company. This bond would serve as the basis for how effectively they worked with one another in tackling obstacles and completing objectives. The men were brothers, family members who had endured the same tribulations as one another. They had each other’s backs, and they would protect one another. 

The Americans established a moral superiority over the Germans. It was based not on equipment or quantity of arms, but on teamwork, coordination, leadership, and mutual trust in a line that ran straight from Ike’s HQ right on down to E Company.

In Chapter 13, “Attack,” the narrator analyzes how the 101st Airborne prevailed over the Germans in their biggest offensive of World War II, the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes. The Nazis pioneered the blitzkrieg, or lightning attack, using fleets of tanks, artillery, and armored transport to overwhelm a region. The Germans’ armament was technologically advanced. Their own disciplined, well-supplied infantry outnumbered the American soldiers. The story has epic proportions in what the German defeat reveals about the American and German mentalities. Moral qualities refer to the entrenched political, organizational, and military values of the two countries. American armed forces depended on egalitarian communication between leaders, officers, and enlisted men. The battle sense and innate intelligence of the individual infantryman were given as much respect as the strategists overseeing troop movement.

The Importance of Strategic Leadership

We couldn’t believe that people like Winters, Matheson, Nixon, and the others existed . . . These were first-class people, and to think these men would care and share their time and efforts with us seemed a miracle. They taught us to trust.

This quote comes from Chapter 1, “We Wanted Those Wings,” and is a remembrance of the awe the young men of Easy Company first felt as they came to know their officers and noncommissioned officers. Here, Private Robert Rader reflects on how strong a leadership core Easy Company had from the beginning. These were men who the recruits respected as leaders, and the soldiers would follow them anywhere. A comparison is implied in Rader’s reflection. These leaders were different from the typical Army cadre types he was only too familiar with, men who were in it only for themselves and would quit if too many demands were made of them. Winters, Matheson, and Nixon were men of exceptional quality and character, oriented by a shared passion to see their men succeed. According to Rader, these were officers who got the best out of their men by expecting nothing less than the best. Robert Rader would himself eventually ascend the ranks of leadership to sergeant and lead by example. 

The attack was a unique example of a small, well-led assault force overcoming and routing a much larger defending force in prepared positions.

This quote appears in Chapter 5, “Follow Me,” and comes from an analysis written by 1st sergeant Carwood Lipton in 1985. Here, Lipton reflects on the events of D-Day when Easy Company parachuted behind enemy lines at Utah Beach, knocked out an artillery battery, and defeated a platoon while having its forces scattered and being woefully understaffed. Many factors led to their success that day, but it was a combination of the seriousness with which they had trained and the steadiness of leadership that won the day. Even though many of Easy Company’s forces had been dropped woefully off target for the mission, they didn’t panic. Instead, they formed into impromptu squads with other displaced soldiers and began hitting the Germans so effectively that the Germans believed a larger fighting force was upon them. Thanks to Richard Winters leading his men steadily and the men relying on their training, the men of Easy Company scored a victory on their first combat mission.

The German machine-gun seemed to be zeroing in on him, and he was a wide open target. ‘The bullets kept snapping by and glancing off the road all around me.’

‘Everybody had froze,’ Strohl remembered. ‘Nobody could move. And Winters got up in the middle of the road and screamed, ‘Come on! Move out! Now!’

That did it.

In Chapter 6, “Move Out!,” the narrator recounts an incident that Dick Winters and Rod Strohl described when Winters risked his life to lead by example. Easy Company was advancing single file into the city of Carentan when a German machine gun opened fire straight down the road they were on. The men instinctively jumped face down into ditches running alongside the road. Winters stayed on the road amid a hail of bullets whizzing past and hitting the road all around him. He screamed at the men to get up and keep moving. Winters was famous for never raising his voice. Strohl remembers they were all frozen by fear in the ditch until they heard the mild-mannered Winters standing in the line of fire exhorting them to keep going. A footnote to the incident mentions another company that similarly got caught in machine-gun fire, froze, and was subsequently severely injured. Winters wasn't urging empty heroics, he was saving the men's lives by getting them moving. Strategic leadership maintains focus on the objective and inspires others to think and act.