Chapter 18. The Soldier’s Dream Life; Austria, May 8–July 31, 1945

Summary 

On May 8, the 2nd Battalion takes up occupation duty in Zell am See, Austria, a world-famous resort area, gathering surrendering German soldiers, disarming them, and shipping them off to POW camps. They also screen the detainees for Nazis who had committed wartime atrocities. High-level German officials will be charged for the orders they had given. The conquered Germans present themselves with a sharp military appearance and disciplined demeanor, in contrast with the grubby, undisciplined GI conquerors. Winters allows the Germans to keep their sidearms. The Germans and Austrians are enthusiastically cooperative, doing Easy Company’s cleaning and construction tasks.

Alcohol flows all day long in a never-ending supply. Although Spiers keeps a tight rein by confining drinking to the men’s private quarters, other GIs drive drunk and create havoc. The men enjoy tennis, baseball, swimming, and touring the sights. Deer and goat hunting supplement their K rations. Gradually, the men of Easy Company rotate back home based on the merits of their service calculated on a point system. By July, nearly every veteran of Normandy has returned Stateside except Webster, who battles bureaucracy over his point total. On November 30, 1945, 101st Airborne is inactivated. Easy Company no longer exists.

Analysis 

Winters shows respect to the German prisoners, whose discipline and military bearing he admires. The mutual trust is shown in Winters’s decision to let them keep their sidearms. Not all German soldiers are Nazis, Hitler’s political party dedicated to forming the Third Reich and ethnically cleansing Germany. They are professional military who take pride in their job to protect citizens and the state despite their defeat. The contrast with their American counterparts, who can be scruffy and irreverent, by this point has context. The guerilla-style warfare that Easy Company specializes in requires living out of foxholes, in abandoned buildings, or in borrowed homes. As Americans, they are not products of a class system. The young men pragmatically accept the terms of their service and get on with the job.

As their service time nears its end, Easy Company experiences the good life in the valley of Kaprun, an Austrian resort area. They reside in first-class European accommodations, and the Austrian women reward their attention. But the round of drinking and partying soon grows old for the men anxious to return to the States and get on with their lives. This proves complicated as they each try to bolster their point totals to qualify. The Army’s point system to determine who goes home and who must stay in active service leaves a bad taste in Webster’s mouth. Unscrupulous officers grant points for meaningless “service” such as favors rather than combat credits. Some of the best soldiers like Shifty Powers do not have the points needed to get home because deserving acts of heroism many times went unrecognized. This reduction of their sacrifice and service to a point system captures the bureaucratic machinery of the Army that all of Easy Company hated. Only the legacy of Easy Company survives once their regiment is inactivated.