Band of Brothers: Episode 8, The Last Patrol

NOTE: "Band of Brothers" is a highly realistic World War Two miniseries from HBO in 2001. Part of the "realism" is the profanity used; so, if you are sensitive to such language, the miniseries is definitely not for you. Also, there are numerous highly bloody scenes of killed or wounded soldiers, and scenes of people in a concentration camp, who have been the subject of horrendous treatment. So here too, if you are sensitive to these kinds of scenes, it is probably a good thing if you skip viewing the miniseries. As for this article and those I'll be doing about the miniseries, I have tried to keep things from being too blatant.

 

This very realistic HBO series is based on the book "Band of Brothers" by historian Stephen Ambrose. Remember, this is NOT a documentary nor an actual reenactment, but rather a series with characters representing the actual men, with their real names, of East Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. The series does present events and actions that the men of Easy Company related to Stephen Ambrose, the historian who wrote the book. In the book's "Acknowledgements and Sources," Ambrose writes that he "circulated the manuscript of this book to the men of Easy Company." He goes on to say there were criticisms, corrections and suggestions offered by the men, and that Richard Winters and Carwood Lipton were heavily involved in reviewing the book, the original publication of which was in 1992, while the first airing of the miniseries was in 2001. 

 

As I write about this series, I'll likely use a man's army rank on occasion, but for the most part, I'll use last names, just as the men do. The cast of this series is so large, I decided not to list it, as it would have been overwhelming, although I did decide to list just a few names of the cast who portrayed the men most seen, most heard and most heard about in the stories presented in this series. Believe me, the whole cast is likely 8 or 10 times as large as those I list here, and everyone did a great job.

 

Partial Cast

 

Damian Lewis as Lieutenant, then Captain, then Major Richard Winters

Ron Livingston as Lieutenant, then Captain Lewis Nixon

Scott Grimes as Private, then Sergeant Donald Malarkey 

Shane Taylor as Medic Eugene "Doc" Roe

Donnie Wahlberg as Sergeant Carwood Lipton 

Michael Cudlitz as Sergeant Denver "Bull" Randleman

Frank John Hughes as Sergeant Bill "Wild Bill" Guarnere

Rick Gomez as Technician 4th Grade George Luz

Kirk Acevedo as Staff Sergeant Joe Toye

James Madio as Technician 4th Grade Frank Perconte

Eion Bailey as Private David Kenyon Webster

Dexter Fletcher as Sergeant John Martin

Ross McCall as Technician Fifth Grade Joseph Liebgott

Neal McDonough as Lieutenant Lynn "Buck" Compton

Nicholas Aaron as Private Robert "Popeye" Wynn 

David Schwimmer as Lieutenant, then Captain Herbert Sobel 

 

Here is the link to the previous article as Episode 7: The Breaking Point

 

https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2023/09/band-of-brothers-they-helped-defeat_19.html

 

 

Before the actual episode begins, a clip from an interview of the real Dick Winters is shown, and he tells how, at this stage of the war in February 1945, that he and many other men felt there was potential to survive the war, as the Battle of the Bulge had broken large-scale German offensive capabilities. He says he and the others wanted to be careful and to not take any unnecessary risks. So, keep this in mind about this episode and thereafter.

 

This episode begins in February 1945 in the city of Haguenau in Alsace with Private David Webster returning to the company after having been wounded in Holland. Webster provides the narration of the episode. The casualties suffered at Bastogne and Foy have left Easy Company's ranks thinned and the survivors are a mix of cynical, bitter and worn down. Webster isn't warmly greeted as he seems to have thought he would be, and the sour attitude leaves him feeling like a replacement. Some of the men resent Webster having been gone for about four months, while they took heavy casualties and suffered the loss of friends, now missing from the ranks. He goes to the company command post, where Sergeant Lipton is on a couch suffering with pneumonia, but he is still trying to help as much as he can. Lipton has Webster take a seat as he prepares to assign him to one of the platoons. Then in walks a young lieutenant named Henry Jones (played by Colin Hanks, the son of Tom Hanks), who had graduated from West Point on what had been D-Day, June 6, 1944. Company commander Speirs is expected shortly, and when he appears, Captain Winters enters and tells Speirs that the regimental commander, Colonel Sink, wants a special patrol to make a raid on a house across the river used as an outpost and observation post by the Germans. Sink wants prisoners for interrogation, and he then wants the house destroyed. 

Winters tells Speirs to pick 15 men for the patrol, including one who speaks German. He then specifically names Babe Heffron (played by Robin Laing), Earl McClung (played by Rocky Marshall) and Joseph Ramirez (played by Rene L. Moreno) to go on the patrol. Jones has been present for all of this, and he wants to volunteer, but Speirs wants men with experience, so he turns him down. Jones and Webster are assigned to the 2nd Platoon and they have to duck and dodge some German mortar fire on their way to the platoon. Malarkey briefs Jones on the situation, and Jones tells Malarkey about the patrol scheduled for later that night. While Jones and Malarkey talk, the men overhear about the patrol, and this prompts a couple of the guys to try to get information from Webster (he had been present in the company command post and heard everything). They now treat Webster better, and he eventually tells them about the 3 men specifically wanted for the patrol. None of the three is happy about it; so, here we have the contrast of three veteran men not wanting to go on the patrol, but one inexperienced newcomer wanting to volunteer, but who is rejected. Malarkey asks for the platoon's attention to tell the men about the patrol and about the three men already designated to participate, but they tell him they already know, because Webster told them (when they were trying to get the information from Webster, they promised not to tell that he gave them the information). While some of the men breathe a sigh of relief, it means little, as there are still 12 more men to be selected from the overall company. A call comes into Malarkey and he tells the men there are showers now available. On the way to the showers, an explosive round sounds down the street and word goes up that there is a casualty. It turns out to be Sergeant Bill Kiehn (actor un-credited for the role), who was killed.

The men go to the showers, and get fresh uniforms, but afterward, Malarkey is told he is to lead the patrol and the rest of his platoon (2nd) is also included (2nd now includes Webster), along with Shifty Powers of 3rd Platoon. Webster talks with Lieutenant Jones, since Jones has been left out of the patrol, and he tells him Malarkey is tired, and that he (Jones) should take his place. The young lieutenant goes over to Malarkey and talks with him, and Malarkey agrees, but it's not their place to decide such things, as that power lies with Speirs, the company commander, and Winters, the battalion commander. So, a little later Jones and Private Vest (played by Kiernan O'Brien), who also wants to go on the patrol (he has taken care of mail, some supplies and reports, so he wants a combat mission before the war ends) go to Winters and Speirs, and Winters initially turns down Jones, but accepts Vest. Then Jones tells the two officers that Malarkey is tired and agreed to step aside, to which Winters sarcastically replies, "That was nice of him." Winters then reconsiders and tells Jones he can go (Jones' participation will be as an observer, not as the leader of the patrol). Winters and Speirs discuss replacing Malarkey to lead the patrol, as they realize he has been in every major engagement since dropping into Normandy on D-Day, and he has seen his closest friends killed or severely wounded in that time. We also see that Frank Perconte has returned, after being wounded in the butt during the fighting at Foy.

The participants meet with Winters, who tells them Sergeant Martin will lead the patrol. The plan for the mission is discussed and certain men are chosen by Martin to actually go with him to try to grab Germans as prisoners. The patrol must cross the Moder River in some rubber boats to the German held side, take some prisoners, place some time-delay demolition charges in the house used by the Germans as an outpost, and then get back in the boats and return to the American held side. Others from the company will provide fire power to cover the returning men and prisoners. Webster gets Liebgott out of having to be a direct part of the patrol, as Liebgott and Webster both speak German, and Webster says he can be the translator, which leaves Liebgott in the safer position of helping to provide covering fire.

The men get into the boats, but as they begin to cross the river, the last boat capsizes; so, the other boats go on to the other side of the river (the men in the capsized boat make it back safely to the American side). The men fire a rifle grenade into the target house, and Private Eugene Jackson (played by Andrew Lee Potts) throws a grenade in, but he charges inside too quickly, and the shrapnel from his own grenade hits him in the head and neck. The rest of the men charge in and take three prisoners, one of whom is wounded. The men get the prisoners and Jackson out, and Webster plants the demolition charge. There's a lot of firing, the men get to the boats, signal by blowing a whistle for covering fire, and they get back to the American side, but they have to leave the wounded German over on the river bank. 

The men concentrate on helping Jackson, and Martin gets Doc Roe, but Jackson dies. In the morning, Sergeant Martin reports to Winters about Jackson's death, and Winters tells him that it wasn't Martin's fault. Regimental commander Colonel Sink tells Winters that he wants another patrol that night and Winters tells Speirs. Sink shows up and tells Winters, Nixon and Speirs what a great job the men did on the patrol. Sink leaves and Speirs tells Winters that he'll brief the men about the second patrol, but Winters says that he'll do it. They go to the men and Winters lays out the plan, which is the same as the first mission, but further into that part of the town, which makes it more dangerous. He then tells the men to get a good nights sleep, and to report to him in the morning that they had again crossed the river, but that they had been unsuccessful at getting more prisoners. He then tells them they will be moving off of the front line. The men are naturally happy, and we hear that a false report was filed about the mission, but that Sink and other regimental officers never learned what really had happened. 

Winters, Nixon, Speirs and Lieutenant Jones go inside, and Lieutenant Welsh returns from the hospital, and where we see and hear Carwood Lipton's official battlefield commission to lieutenant. Then Winters tells Jones that he is being promoted to first lieutenant and he gives him written orders from the regimental headquarters that he is to join the regiment's staff. When Winters is outside, his friend Nixon gives Winters the news that Winters has been promoted to major. They and the men get into trucks and jeeps to withdraw from the front line.

 

 Photo is of the HBO 2015 Blu-Ray Miniseries release ...

WORD HISTORY:

Grenade-This word is related to "grain" and to "gravy," Latin-derived words borrowed by English from French, and to "corn" (the form meaning maize), a word from the Germanic roots of English. "Grenade" goes back to Indo European "ger," which had the notion, "to wear down;" thus also, "to grow older, to mature." This produced Indo European "gerhanom," which meant, "grain;" that is, "the matured part of a plant." This gave Latin "granum," also meaning, "grain, seed," and this spawned the Latin adjective "granatus," meaning "of, about or relating to having grains;" that is, "seeds," and this produced the noun "granatum," which was used with "pomum," a form from Latin "pome," meaning "apple or fruit," which gave Latin "pomum granatum," which meant "pomegranate," literally, "apple of many seeds or grains." This was taken by Latin-based Old French as "pomegrenate," with the word often shortened to its second part in both Latin and French. While types of hurled weapons dates well back in history, as the use of gunpowder became common, its use in bombs also developed to cause the explosion of thrown weapons that caused fragments to violently disperse to kill or wound personnel. The resemblance to pomegranates, which are filled with seeds, fit perfectly for the weapon; thus, "grenade." English took the word from French in the late 1500s, and the word also came to be applied to similar weapons that could be launched from rifles or from grenade launchers. English cousin German also borrowed the word, that borrowing was from Italian "granata," and the German form, "Granate," is used as the general word for "(artillery) shell," besides for the thrown weapon.

Band of Brothers: They Helped Defeat Hitler (Episode 7: The Breaking Point)

NOTE: "Band of Brothers" is a highly realistic World War Two miniseries from HBO in 2001. Part of the "realism" is the profanity used; so, if you are sensitive to such language, the miniseries is definitely not for you. Also, there are numerous highly bloody scenes of killed or wounded soldiers, and scenes of people in a concentration camp, who have been the subject of horrendous treatment. So here too, if you are sensitive to these kinds of scenes, it is probably a good thing if you skip viewing the miniseries. As for this article and those I'll be doing about the miniseries, I have tried to keep things from being too blatant.

 

This very realistic HBO series is based on the book "Band of Brothers" by historian Stephen Ambrose. Remember, this is NOT a documentary nor an actual reenactment, but rather a series with characters representing the actual men, with their real names, of East Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. The series does present events and actions that the men of Easy Company related to Stephen Ambrose, the historian who wrote the book. In the book's "Acknowledgements and Sources," Ambrose writes that he "circulated the manuscript of this book to the men of Easy Company." He goes on to say there were criticisms, corrections and suggestions offered by the men, and that Richard Winters and Carwood Lipton were heavily involved in reviewing the book, the original publication of which was in 1992, while the first airing of the miniseries was in 2001.   

As I write about this series, I'll likely use a man's army rank on occasion, but for the most part, I'll use last names, just as the men do. The cast of this series is so large, I decided not to list it, as it would have been overwhelming, although I did decide to list just a few names of the cast who portrayed the men most seen, most heard and most heard about in the stories presented in this series. Believe me, the whole cast is likely 8 or 10 times as large as those I list here, and everyone did a great job.

 

 Partial Cast

 

Damian Lewis as Lieutenant, then Captain, then Major Richard Winters

Ron Livingston as Lieutenant, then Captain Lewis Nixon

Scott Grimes as Private, then Sergeant Donald Malarkey 

Shane Taylor as Medic Eugene "Doc" Roe

Donnie Wahlberg as Sergeant Carwood Lipton 

Michael Cudlitz as Sergeant Denver "Bull" Randleman

Frank John Hughes as Sergeant Bill "Wild Bill" Guarnere

Rick Gomez as Technician 4th Grade George Luz

Kirk Acevedo as Staff Sergeant Joe Toye

James Madio as Technician 4th Grade Frank Perconte

Eion Bailey as Private David Kenyon Webster

Dexter Fletcher as Sergeant John Martin

Ross McCall as Technician Fifth Grade Joseph Liebgott

Neal McDonough as Lieutenant Lynn "Buck" Compton

Nicholas Aaron as Private Robert "Popeye" Wynn 

David Schwimmer as Lieutenant, then Captain Herbert Sobel 

Here is the link to the previous article as Episode 6: Bastogne:

https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2023/09/band-of-brothers-they-helped-defeat_12.html

 

 

This episode opens with the men of Easy Company advancing through the forest outside of the village of Foy (rhymes with 'toy' in English, but is pronounced as if "fwah" in French, and the company is stationed in the French speaking part of Belgium, with Belgium having three official languages: Dutch, French and German). This forested area is called "Bois Jacques" (Jack's Wood or Forest), and Sergeant Lipton's narration tells us that the company cleared the forest of any German troops, but that the men had not met much resistance. For much of the remainder of the episode, the company's men will be in defensive positions just outside Foy, until they are told to capture Foy itself. (Note: Foy and a few other villages are all part of the Bastogne area, and Bastogne is only about 2 miles away.)

 

Hoobler (played by Peter McCabe) shoots a German Waffen SS soldier riding a horse. When Hoobler gets to the man, he finds the man has a Luger on him. Hoobler has long wanted a Luger, and now he has it. Hoobler shows off the gun to his Easy Company buddies and he puts it into his pocket, but a little while later, the gun goes off, with the bullet tearing open an artery in Hoobler's leg. The men all have on any extra clothing they've got to get them through the cold weather, and Hoobler's clothing prevents the guys from seeing how bad his wound is. The men try taking care of him and getting him to an aid station, but Hoobler dies from loss of blood.

 

One of the continuing threads of this episode is about Lieutenant Norman Dike (played by Peter O'Meara), the then commander of Easy Company, who had replaced Lieutenant Frederick Heyliger when Heyliger was accidentally shot by a sentry (Heyliger had been the replacement for Captain Winters when Winters was moved up to 2nd Battalion Headquarters). The series has Dike played as an officer who has connections to a higher level officer in the 101st Airborne Division, and that he was given command of Easy Company to gain some combat experience for his resumé, before his next military career advancement. (Note: The men were not really connected to Dike, who seems to have generally kept a distance from the men.) Throughout much of the episode, we hear the men talk about Dike being absent for long unexplained periods of time, and the men call him "Foxhole Norman," as that's where he pretty much stays when he is around. For the most part, everyone just tolerates Dike, as they're all stuck in defensive positions in and around Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge; however, once the Germans are stopped, then comes the shift to offensive operations by the Americans to drive the Germans back from any ground they had taken. Now the men worry about any inexperience or incompetence in Dike and how it could get them killed. Captain Richard Winters and his friend Captain Lewis Nixon talk about Lieutenant Dike on a couple of occasions, and Nixon, who sort of adds some blunt, non emotional points to Winters at times, tells Winters, "We all know who you'd like to have running Easy (Company), but the problem is, it's not your job anymore, Dick." More on this shortly ...    

 

We see Sergeant Lipton and Lieutenant Compton often talking with the men, and the men have strong and comfortable ties to both Lipton and Compton.

 

The Germans unleash periodic artillery barrages on Easy Company, and the ferocious bombardments take a toll: Muck and Penkala are killed by a direct hit on their foxhole by a German artillery shell. Part of one of Joe Toye's legs is blown off and when Guarnere is trying to drag Toye to safety, another artillery round explodes nearby, and Buck Compton, who is coming to help them, is thrown back by the explosion, and Guarnere loses a leg. Compton gets to his feet, but his struggles with "shell shock" hit the "breaking point" (of the episode title) when he sees Toye and Guarnere lying there on the ground badly wounded, and he removes his helmet and drops it to the ground. Compton is pulled from the front line and sent for care elsewhere. Don Malarkey is under lots of stress, as Penkala and Muck were two of his best friends, but when offered a chance to work with Captain Winters for a couple of days to get a break, he turns the offer down and chooses to stay with the others. Lipton and George Luz are in a foxhole as one of the strong artillery barrages ends, and a dud German artillery shell lands in the dirt at the edge of their foxhole. Luz takes out a cigarette and lights it, but Lipton reaches over, takes it and starts puffing away. Luz says, "I thought you didn't smoke," and Lipton replies, "I don't."

 

In what is one of those lighter scenes, even though the subject is serious, Private Kenneth Webb (played by Jordan Frieda) hears from a couple of the guys about Lieutenant Speirs (played by Matthew Settle) having possibly shot one of his own men, and about Speirs giving 20 to 30 German prisoners cigarettes, just before he turned his Thompson sub-machine gun on them. So, who walks up to the foxhole just as the stories end? Speirs! The guys don't say anything, but their faces show, "I hope he didn't hear any of that!" Speirs asks what the men are doing and tells them how they should improve their foxhole. With the stories about him, the men are all uneasy around Speirs, and as he walks away, he turns and asks them if they want a cigarette. The men just look at him and nobody says anything, so Speirs specifically then asks Webb, who doesn't speak, but who just shakes his head no, his helmet moving from side to side. It's a pretty funny scene.

 

The time has come for the capture of Foy, and the day before, Sergeant Lipton meets with Winters and tells him how he is confident the men are ready, but that he doesn't have confidence in Lieutenant Dike to lead the company into battle. He tells Winters that Dike "is an empty uniform," and Winters listens, but because Dike has a friend in the upper levels of the 101st Airborne, he can't do anything about Dike, and Lipton knows that too. The next day, we see Winters giving final instructions to Dike, ending with, "Get it done!" The attack proceeds across a field in front of Foy, and there are storage huts and such scattered around, as the area is rural. All is going well until Dike orders the advance to halt. Many of the men are out in the open, and such a pause allows the Germans to zero in on the men with their artillery, and they do! Dike is confused, and he has no plan on how to advance. Winters is watching, as is Colonel Sink, and the casualties mount, including Frank Perconte, who is wounded in his backside, and Private Webb is killed. Winters starts to go out to the men to lead them himself, but Sink orders him back, so Winters calls on Lieutenant Speirs to go in and lead the attack. Speirs dashes into action, has the men focus on a building with a sniper, which they do, eliminating the sniper, and Speirs charges forward with the men following him, and with the Germans now abandoning vehicles to flee. Many Germans surrender and the men begin to celebrate the victory, but they are premature, as another German sniper shoots and kills some of the men before sharpshooter Shifty Powers (played by Peter Youngblood Hills) takes him out with one shot. The battle is over, but the ranks have been thinned.

 

That night, the men are entertained by the choir at a convent, as they finally get to be inside, instead of out in the cold. Lipton narrates again, telling us all the casualties the company suffered (the company had 145 men when they first arrived in Belgium, and as they spend the evening in Foy, they are down to 63.) In condensed form, Speirs figures that Lipton wants to ask him about the stories he has heard about him (Speirs), but Lipton tells him that because Speirs has never denied the stories, the stories continue, which brings Speirs to tell him that having such a fearsome reputation is not necessarily a bad thing. In a great moment, Lipton tells Speirs that the men aren't worried about the stories, they are just happy to have a good commander again. Speirs then tells Lipton that it's his understanding that since Winters moved up to the battalion headquarters, Easy Company has always had a good leader and a man who held the men together in tough circumstances. He tells Lipton, that man is Lipton, and he tells him that Winters has put in for a battlefield commission for Lipton, and it will be official in a couple of days. Lipton will be a lieutenant. 

 

The company does not get the time off they had thought they would get; rather, they are off to Hagenau in Alsace to help counter a secondary German offensive (compared to Hitler's Ardennes attack) called "Northwind" (German: Nordwind).                   

 

 

 Photo is of the HBO 2015 Blu-Ray Miniseries release ... 

WORD HISTORY:

Boot-The spelling "boot" has various meanings when used as a noun or as a verb, and these forms are not all related (I intend to do other meanings too). First, the noun for "a foot covering, the top of which goes above the ankle," with the singular certainly used, but I'd say a bit more common in the plural, "boots." The origin of the form with this meaning is shaky, although it "seems" to go back to Indo European "bhud/bhut," "seemingly" with the notion of "to beat or strike," which then gave Old Germanic "buttaz," which adjectivally meant "short, blunt," and the noun form meant "blunt end, rounded end" (the idea being, "something that is shortened or blunted as a result of striking it"). This gave Frankish, a Germanic dialect/language, "butt," meaning "blunt," with the Frankish verb form "buttan" meaning "to strike or hit." Forms of these words were absorbed by Old French as "bot," meaning "a hit, a strike/striking," and "bote," meaning "shoe that covers the foot and lower part of the leg," perhaps from its appearance of being blunted or shortened (not extending the length of the leg?). This was borrowed by English in the first part of the 1300s meaning, "shoe extending to the lower leg for horsemen," but the meaning then expanded to all such "high shoes." "Boot" is related, through Germanic, to "buttock" and "butt" (thick end piece), both from the Germanic roots of English, and it is also related to French "butte" (mound or small hill), which also is from Germanic Frankish. None of the other Germanic languages have forms of "boot" in the English sense, rather they have words that fit with the original Germanic meaning "blunt." "Boot" meaning "compartment for stowing things" (seemingly a shortening of "boot locker") and in British English meaning what Americans call "the trunk of a car,"^ is from the same sources of "boot, the high shoe." It came from a few hundred years ago and the use of a chest by a coachman to both store his boots, and to then provide a seat for himself on the closed chest. Later, such storage compartments were built into a coach, and later still, they were included in motor vehicle designs, and the term carried over to such in British English.

 

^ I'm never quite sure about the terms used in Canada, but my "guess" is, they may well use "trunk." Unlike the U.S., Canada has maintained an official connection to the British throne; and thus, the British monarch is also the king or queen of Canada.    

Band of Brothers: They Helped Defeat Hitler (Episode 6: Bastogne)

NOTE: "Band of Brothers" is a highly realistic World War Two miniseries from HBO in 2001. Part of the "realism" is the profanity used; so, if you are sensitive to such language, the miniseries is definitely not for you. Also, there are numerous highly bloody scenes of killed or wounded soldiers, and scenes of people in a concentration camp, who have been the subject of horrendous treatment. So here too, if you are sensitive to these kinds of scenes, it is probably a good thing if you skip viewing the miniseries. As for this article and those I'll be doing about the miniseries, I have tried to keep things from being too blatant.

 ____________________________________

 

This very realistic HBO series is based on the book "Band of Brothers" by historian Stephen Ambrose. Remember, this is NOT a documentary nor an actual reenactment, but rather a series with characters representing the actual men, with their real names, of East Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. The series does present events and actions that the men of Easy Company related to Stephen Ambrose, the historian who wrote the book. In the book's "Acknowledgements and Sources," Ambrose writes that he "circulated the manuscript of this book to the men of Easy Company." He goes on to say there were criticisms, corrections and suggestions offered by the men, and that Richard Winters and Carwood Lipton were heavily involved in reviewing the book, the original publication of which was in 1992, while the first airing of the miniseries was in 2001. 

 

As I write about this series, I'll likely use a man's army rank on occasion, but for the most part, I'll use last names, just as the men do. The cast of this series is so large, I decided not to list it, as it would have been overwhelming, although I did decide to list just a few names of the cast who portrayed the men most seen, most heard and most heard about in the stories presented in this series. Believe me, the whole cast is likely 8 or 10 times as large as those I list here, and everyone did a great job.

 

Partial Cast

 

Damian Lewis as Lieutenant, then Captain, then Major Richard Winters

Ron Livingston as Lieutenant, then Captain Lewis Nixon

Scott Grimes as Private, then Sergeant Donald Malarkey 

Shane Taylor as Medic Eugene "Doc" Roe

Donnie Wahlberg as Sergeant Carwood Lipton 

Michael Cudlitz as Sergeant Denver "Bull" Randleman

Frank John Hughes as Sergeant Bill "Wild Bill" Guarnere

Rick Gomez as Technician 4th Grade George Luz

Kirk Acevedo as Staff Sergeant Joe Toye

James Madio as Technician 4th Grade Frank Perconte

Eion Bailey as Private David Kenyon Webster

Dexter Fletcher as Sergeant John Martin

Ross McCall as Technician Fifth Grade Joseph Liebgott

Neal McDonough as Lieutenant Lynn "Buck" Compton

Nicholas Aaron as Private Robert "Popeye" Wynn 

David Schwimmer as Lieutenant, then Captain Herbert Sobel 

 

Here is the link to the previous article as Episode 5: Crossroads

 

https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2023/09/band-of-brothers-they-helped-defeat.html?zx=bc3e5930eb4402e 

 

 

(Note: The terrain of the Ardennes was heavily forested and often rough. Vehicles, including tanks, had few options to move, except on roads, which weren't all that plentiful in the region, and those that existed tended to be narrow; plus, it was winter, and it often snowed. In 1940, German forces broke through relatively sparse French forces in this region and moved on to cut off Allied forces and trap them at Dunkirk. The German idea in late 1944 was similar, and indeed, the American forces were stretched, and many troops had little or no combat experience. Hitler had managed to scrape together a formidable force to attack the Americans in this area, but while the Germans achieved some successes, they met tough opposition from the Americans, and the German supply situation was poor, as in a certain way, they had too many troops and vehicles for such a limited number of roads. While the German Tiger tanks were fearsome weapons, they were also big and heavy; and thus, they weren't ideal for navigating the poor road system in the Ardennes. In 1940, the German armored force that helped achieve a breakthrough was done with much lighter tanks.)   

This episode opens with medic Doc Roe wandering through the forest and we eventually see him approaching Captain Winters, who has to break thick ice off of some water in order to try and shave. Winters actually takes a young German soldier prisoner, as the young man wanders inside the American line to "empty himself of yesterday's rations" (the 'line,' such as it is a line, is irregular, with neither side being totally sure where the enemy is, as they are dug in and snow had fallen. General McAuliffe (played by William Armstrong), the acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division, stops to hear from 2nd Battalion about the true situation. Robert Strayer (played by Phil McKee), the battalion commander, and Captain Nixon tell him about gaps in the line, low supplies of food and ammunition, and lack of proper winter clothing. McAuliffe, a no nonsense guy, tells them they have to close the line somehow and hold on until the weather improves, so that supplies can be airdropped to the forces in Bastogne. 

 

The Germans periodically put the Americans under artillery fire, with wood splinters providing another dangerous aspect to these bombardments, as when the shells explode, they destroy parts of the many trees, sending splinters both large and small flying about to cause painful injuries or even death. During various parts of this episode, we see some of the things that happen to the men, who are treated by Doc Roe and Ralph Spina (played by Tony Devlin), Easy Company's medics team: Joe Toye has trench foot, and when he removed his boots to dry his feet and change socks, the boots were destroyed by one of the artillery shells, but Doc Roe gets Toye another pair of boots; Bill Guarnere really does have gonorrhea; Buck Compton continues to struggle with his mental health, as the stresses of the last six months have taken a toll; "Smokey" Gordon (played by Ben Caplan) is seriously wounded by a bullet that enters one shoulder and exits through the other, leaving him paralyzed (this was the end of the war for Gordon and he spent a lot of time in hospitals, and he gradually overcame the paralysis); Alex Penkala (played by Tim Matthews) was lightly wounded, but bandaged up by Doc Roe, Harry Welsh (played by Rick Warden), in a foolish move, starts a small campfire, which Winters tells him is a bad idea, but Welsh says, "Just for a couple of minutes ... we're in a dell" (dell=small hollow), but the fire draws the attention of German artillery and mortars and shells begin landing all around, with Welsh being wounded in the thigh (he spent time in the hospital, before returning to the unit a little later in the war); Skinny Sisk is wounded in the leg with some wood splinters caused by one of the exploding shells, and he is taken to the medical facility in the interior of Bastogne, where he is attended by two nurses, one of whom gives him a glass of whiskey for the pain, and she strokes his head, bringing Sisk to tell Doc Roe, "I'm in heaven Doc!"; Private John Julian (played by Marc Ryan-Jordan) is shot and killed while on a patrol with some other men from the company, with "Babe" Heffron (played by Robin Laing) coming in to try to save his close friend Julian, but he couldn't get to him, as each time he tried, the German fire would intensify. Julian's death sends Heffron's emotions reeling, as Heffron and Julian had promised one another that if one was killed, the survivor would take the killed man's belongings to his mother. 

 

Throughout the first half of the episode, Doc Roe keeps scrounging medical supplies from any of the men, because he is so short of many things. In a trip into the heart of Bastogne, he sees a nurse named Renee (played by Lucie Jeanne), and he is able to get a box of supplies from her. On another trip into town, Doc tries to help Renee and another nurse, Anna (played by Rebecca Okot), save a wounded soldier's life, but the man dies. Doc Roe is visibly angry and Renee sheds some tears. Physical tiredness is now complicated by frustration and anger.

 

Colonel Sink (played by Dale Dye), the regimental commander, comes to Easy Company and tells the men of a German demand for surrender and General McAuliffe's one word answer to the Germans of "Nuts!" The men laugh and Dye leaves, with McAuliffe's message having inspired the men to continue to resist. (Note: McAuliffe's reply to the German surrender demand has gone down in history as one of the great stories of World War Two and the 101st Airborne's tenacious defense of Bastogne is one of the most famous military achievements in American history.) 

 

After days of snow and fog, the skies clear and American aircraft drop supplies into Bastogne. Doc Roe struggles with the stresses of killed and wounded men and Captain Winters sends Roe into Bastogne for what he thinks will be a brief rest and some hot food. Instead, the Luftwaffe bombs the town and Roe sees the building used as a medical facility get hit. When he goes in, he sees Renee dead in the rubble. He goes back to Easy Company's perimeter around the outskirts of the town. He finds Heffron in a foxhole and for the first time, Doc calls Heffron by his nickname, Babe, and this cheers the young man (up to this point, Doc Roe typically calls the men by their last names, although he would sometimes call Heffron by his proper first name, Edward, until finally one day, a stressed Heffron snaps at Roe and tells him to stop calling him Edward, "only the goddamn nuns call me Edward." 

 

Photo is of the HBO 2015 Blu-Ray Miniseries release ... 

WORD HISTORY:

Nurse-This word is related to "nourish," "nurture" and "nutrition," all Latin-derived words borrowed by English from French, and to "nutrient," another Latin word borrowed directly from that language. "Nurse" goes back to Indo European "(s)neu," which meant "to flow," and then an extended form "(s)neutri," which meant "a wet nurse, a woman who suckles a child." This gave Latin the verb "nutrire," which meant "to nurse a child, to feed, to foster," and this produced the Latin noun "nutrix," "a wet nurse," which produced the adjective "nutricius," meaning "relating to suckling:" thus also, "relating to giving nourishment," which then gave Latin the noun "nutricia," meaning "a nurse, one who helps in raising a child," and this passed to Old French as "norrice," meaning "a wet nurse, a nanny," and English borrowed the word circa 1200 with all sorts of spellings, including: "norice," "nurrice," "nurice," "noryse," and meaning "a wet nurse, a nanny, a foster mother." The modern form of the word began around 1400, but other spellings remained for a time. The meaning of "wet nurse" expanded to the more general, "woman who helps in the upbringing of children" in the early 1500s. The second half of the 1500s saw the word applied to "one who provides care for sick, elderly or injured people," and the idea of "taking care of children" also began to be applied to "tending to young plants." The verb form started as "norishen" and "nurshen" and meant "to suckle a child," but it also could mean "to help raise a child or children," and following the noun, the verb also added the meaning "to care for the sick or infirm."                  .       

Indonesian Tofu Omelettes: Tahu Telur

Sambal oelek is an Indonesian relish or paste of ground red chilies; although some other countries have their own versions, including the U.S. In the U.S., it is easy to find in supermarkets, and likely even in some smaller grocery stores, and especially, of course, in Asian grocery stores, and it is not terribly expensive, although imported brands likely cost somewhat more. 

Tofu has had an increasing popularity in the U.S., and not just in Chinese restaurants, where it is typically listed as "bean curd," but as a distinct product itself, typically sold in rectangular cakes or blocks. Tofu by itself is not an exciting food, but it is good prepared with other flavorful food items, as tofu absorbs the flavors of these foods. In this dish, the tofu gets help by first frying it lightly, including it in an omelette, then adding a tasty peanut sauce. Nowadays, tofu is easily found in supermarkets, and, it isn't expensive. 

 

Ingredients (4 servings): 

 

To make the omelettes: 

 

1/2 of one firm block of tofu, drained and cut into small cubes (about 2/3 inch square)

4 large eggs, beaten

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

2/3 teaspoon salt

5 greens onion, chopped

2 tablespoons oil (peanut oil is good for this)

 

To make the sauce:

 

2 teaspoons peanut oil

1/4 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky)

1/4 cup finely chopped onion (red or yellow)

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 medium Roma tomato, chopped

1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon sambal oelek (according to desired heat level)

1 tablespoon brown sugar (or palm sugar)

3 tablespoons kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)

2 teaspoons soy sauce

1/4 cup water

 

3 or 4 chopped green onions, for garnish

 

In a bowl, beat the eggs, then add the pepper, salt and chopped green onion; mix well. Heat 1 tablespoon peanut oil in a large non-stick skillet (I use a 12 inch skillet) over medium heat. Add the tofu cubes and saute until just lightly browned. Add the egg mixture, pouring it to cover all of the tofu. Brown the omelette on both sides. For the sauce: In a separate pan, add the 2 teaspoons of peanut oil, then add the onion, then after 1 minute add the garlic and chopped tomato and saute everything until softened (use a fork to mash the tomato as it cooks). Lower the heat to low. Add the peanut butter, sambal oelek, brown sugar, kecap manis, soy sauce and water, stir very well to mix everything together. Heat until bubbly (if the sauce is too thick, add more water, a tablespoon at a time, and mix well after each tablespoon, until you get the preferred consistency). Serve each omelette with some of the sauce spooned over the omelette, then top each serving with some chopped green onion as a garnish. 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Sort-This word is related to "assort," "consort," "sorcery" and "desert" (the verb meaning "to leave or abandon a place, position or duty"), all Latin-derived words borrowed by English from French, and to "assert" and "series," also Latin-derived words borrowed directly from that language. "Sort" goes back to Indo European "ser," which had the notion "to put or join in a line;" thus also, "to put one after the other;" thus, "to put together, to connect." This gave Latin "sors," which had a wide range of meanings like: "allotment, lottery, share/portion, category, classification, status/class." This passed into Latin-based Old French as "sorte," meaning "classification. type, kind," and English borrowed the word in the latter part of the 1300s as "sort(e)," with the meaning "a kind or type of something, "originally seemingly used of people and animals, but then expanded. The verb also is from the same ancient origins, and Latin "sors" produced the verb "sortire/sortiri," meaning "to share, to apportion, to divide (up), to draw lots," which passed to Old French as "sortir," meaning "to categorize, to classify, to allot," and English borrowed this verb as "sorten" in the mid 1300s, which was earlier than the noun. Interestingly, German borrowed the word too, as "Sorte," but from two sources; first, from Dutch/Low German, which had it from French; and second, southern German speakers borrowed the word from Italian.       

Band of Brothers: They Helped Defeat Hitler (Episode 5: Crossroads)

NOTE: "Band of Brothers" is a highly realistic World War Two miniseries from HBO in 2001. Part of the "realism" is the profanity used; so, if you are sensitive to such language, the miniseries is definitely not for you. Also, there are numerous highly bloody scenes of killed or wounded soldiers, and scenes of people in a concentration camp, who have been the subject of horrendous treatment. So here too, if you are sensitive to these kinds of scenes, it is probably a good thing if you skip viewing the miniseries. As for this article and those I'll be doing about the miniseries, I have tried to keep things from being too blatant.

 ____________________________________

 

This very realistic HBO series is based on the book "Band of Brothers" by historian Stephen Ambrose. Remember, this is NOT a documentary nor an actual reenactment, but rather a series with characters representing the actual men, with their real names, of East Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. The series does present events and actions that the men of Easy Company related to Stephen Ambrose, the historian who wrote the book. In the book's "Acknowledgements and Sources," Ambrose writes that he "circulated the manuscript of this book to the men of Easy Company." He goes on to say there were criticisms, corrections and suggestions offered by the men, and that Richard Winters and Carwood Lipton were heavily involved in reviewing the book, the original publication of which was in 1992, while the first airing of the miniseries was in 2001 (Ambrose died in 2002). 

 

As I write about this series, I'll likely use a man's army rank on occasion, but for the most part, I'll use last names, just as the men do. The cast of this series is so large, I decided not to list it, as it would have been overwhelming, although I did decide to list just a few names of the cast who portrayed the men most seen, most heard and most heard about in the stories presented in this series. Believe me, the whole cast is likely 8 or 10 times as large as those I list here, and everyone did a great job.

 

Partial Cast

 

Damian Lewis as Lieutenant, then Captain, then Major Richard Winters

Ron Livingston as Lieutenant, then Captain Lewis Nixon

Scott Grimes as Private, then Sergeant Donald Malarkey 

Shane Taylor as Medic Eugene "Doc" Roe

Donnie Wahlberg as Sergeant Carwood Lipton 

Michael Cudlitz as Sergeant Denver "Bull" Randleman

Frank John Hughes as Sergeant Bill "Wild Bill" Guarnere

Rick Gomez as Technician 4th Grade George Luz

Kirk Acevedo as Staff Sergeant Joe Toye

James Madio as Technician 4th Grade Frank Perconte

Eion Bailey as Private David Kenyon Webster

Dexter Fletcher as Sergeant John Martin

Ross McCall as Technician Fifth Grade Joseph Liebgott

Neal McDonough as Lieutenant Lynn "Buck" Compton

Nicholas Aaron as Private Robert "Popeye" Wynn 

David Schwimmer as Lieutenant, then Captain Herbert Sobel 

Here is the link to the previous article as Episode 4: Replacements:

 

https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2023/08/band-of-brothers-they-helped-defeat_28.html

This episode, directed by Tom Hanks, continues following Easy Company in Holland, in the aftermath of the fighting in and around Eindhoven. (Note: Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks were the executive producers of the miniseries.) Captain Winters has to write a report about one of the company's actions, and we see what happened in a flashback, as Winters goes over things in his mind to write the report. 

 

One thing to remember about Holland, it has lots of dikes and ditches, and one such area plays a part in this episode. Ditches were dug and the dirt then thrown up around the ditch to create the dike; that is, the embankment. Some of these dikes had roads along them. The episode starts as we see and hear a soldier running through a field with his rifle. It's Captain Winters and he finally runs up a rise (this is the dike) and sees a very young German soldier getting up from the ground (this is in the ditch). They look at each other momentarily, and Winters shoots and kills the soldier. The scene now shifts to Winters trying to awaken Captain Nixon for a meeting at the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment's HQ (Easy Company is part of this regiment), but Nixon  continues to remain in bed. Winters takes a glass from a shelf and throws its liquid content onto Nixon, who screams, "That's my own p--s." Winters gets a good laugh out of it. 

The two captains go to the meeting and Winters is told to submit a battle report about Easy Company's successful action against two companies of German Waffen SS troops. So Winters goes back to his command post and starts typing his report. As he starts thinking of what to put into the report, we get to see just what this is all about. We now see the company is in its quarters at night and a patrol returns with a wounded man, Sergeant James Alley (played by George Calil). As Alley's wounds are tended, Winters calls a squad of the men to action. Winters and the squad move along and there is a burst of machine gun fire ahead, but not at them, and Winters and the Easy Company men can't imagine what the Germans are firing at, and thus giving away their position to the Americans. Winters goes to check things out and he sees a number of German soldiers in and around a machine gun position. Winters goes back to the men and has a mortar and its team readied to provide support, and he moves the other men, including a machine gun team, forward. He assigns each rifleman a specific German soldier as a target. They are to fire when he fires. The whole thing goes off well, as each man hits his German target, and then the paratroopers withdraw, with mortar fire and machine gun fire covering their withdrawal, but Corporal William Dukeman (played by Mark Lawrence) is killed. Winters sends for the rest of the 1st Platoon, and another machine gun team.

(Note: The dikes and ditches in Holland made for an advantage and a disadvantage for the troops of both sides. As we'll see here shortly, men in separate ditches (which were fields) from both sides, were out of sight of one another, because the dikes (embankments) blocked their respective views. But, for men in a ditch, if the enemy got on top of the dike, they had a decisive advantage to fire down on those in the ditch.)

 

When daylight comes, Winters has the platoon lined up in a ditch and ready to charge forward, and he plans to throw a smoke grenade, which will discharge red smoke, to signal the attack. Winters and the men had no idea of how many Germans could be over the dike in the next ditch. Winters instructs the men only to charge forward when they see red smoke. He pulls the pin, throws the smoke grenade and runs forward. After several seconds the grenade discharges the red smoke and the men run forward, although at some distance behind Winters (it "seems" the grenade was slow to release the smoke). Now we go back to where this episode opened; that is, Winters runs across the field, up a small rise (a dike) and stops to see a young German soldier getting up from the ground below. There's a short pause as Winters looks at the boyish soldier, who gives a bit of a smile, and Winters fires and kills him. Winters then starts firing at a company size group of German soldiers a little further away in the ditch. Most of them are also on the ground, but the Germans are so totally taken by surprise and startled, they naturally try to find cover, but now the platoon of paratroopers has joined Winters on top of the dike and their fire brings down many a German soldier. After a short time, more Germans enter into the field (there is a ferry crossing near to where the Germans are, and they are trying to withdraw to there, then over the Lower Rhine River). Winters radios for artillery fire, which then decimates much of the remaining German force. Martin and Webster have a few Germans surrender to them saying, "Please don't shoot, we're Polish." Now the Germans get artillery support, and shells begin falling close to the American line and Webster is wounded in the lower leg. The paratroopers get their wounded and the German artillery fire ceases. (Note: Regarding the "Polish" SS men, the Germans and the Poles have had a long, and often, contentious history, which led to many changes in territories. For a couple of centuries, the territorial changes were the Germans taking Polish lands, with the Germans represented by the Prussians and the Austrians, with both taking lands with large numbers of people of Polish background. Once that happened, some of those areas acquired German settlers; thus, a number of areas had mixed German and Polish inhabitants. The results of World War One saw several of these areas with mixed populations go to the newly reformed Poland. When World War Two started, the Germans conquered these territories and put men from the areas into the German military. Some came from areas that had strong identification with "Germans," while others were far less "German" in their view of things, with some even being less than fluent in German, although some people were fluent in both German and Polish. These men in the miniseries are in the SS, so they must have been considered "German" by the Nazis, although with German manpower shortages, the definition of who was German was frequently "stretched.") (Note: The SS was a Nazi organization dating back to before the time when Hitler came to power. Once Hitler was in power, the SS expanded into a huge Nazi organization with sort of "shadow" agencies of the German government and military. The militarized part of the SS was called the Waffen SS, and once the war started, it raised many military units that were administered by the SS, but which in the field, were under the command of the German Army.) 

 

I've neglected to mention, going back to Easy Company's training in the U.S., that Lewis Nixon is a heavy whiskey drinker (he drinks Scotch) and he stores larger bottles of Scotch in Winters' footlocker. He uses these bottles to fill a smaller flask, which is easier to carry around. So, every time he needs to "fill up," he has to get into Winter's footlocker. Winters tolerates the situation, because Nixon is his friend. Winters doesn't smoke or drink, and he rarely swears, but he doesn't lecture others about these things, and he recognizes the reality of military life with the diverse personalities of his men. Harry Welsh is also a heavy drinker, and he keeps liquor in his canteen. In a funny moment during the first episode, the company is being transported by train in the U.S. Nixon comes to where Winters and Welsh are seated and Nixon takes out his whiskey and offers Winters a drink. Winters says, "You know I don't drink," and Nixon replies, "If I thought you'd have taken a drink, I wouldn't have offered it to you." lol! But Welsh gladly accepts Nixon's offer, then saying something like, "This trip might turn out to be okay, after all." Now back to the current episode ...  

 

Winters goes to Liebgott, who had been lightly wounded on the side of the neck during the fighting. He orders Liebgott to take the eleven prisoners they have back to 2nd Battalion headquarters, but he makes Liebgott turn over his ammunition, except for one bullet, and he tells him, "If you drop one of the prisoners, the others will jump you. I want all of the prisoners to arrive back at battalion CP alive" (CP=command post). (Note: Joe Liebgott is depicted in the miniseries as being Jewish, but historically, that is in question, although either one or both sides of his family could have converted to Catholicism, as Joe was supposedly raised as a Catholic. His parents were from Austria, a heavily Catholic area (and he acts as a translator in the series, as he was fluent in German). After the war, Liebgott's own children were raised as Catholics. Now, in contradiction to all of this, the men of Easy Company who offered comments on Liebgott after the war, thought he was Jewish, and I'm sure the scriptwriters for the series loved that, as it gave them the story line of an American Jew versus the Nazis, which is definitely present in the series, but I don't really know what to make of the contradictory information about Liebgott.      

 

Winters sits down near where the young German he killed is lying and he stares over at him. One of the paratroopers tells Winters that the German force there was all SS. Nixon arrives and talks with one of the men, who tells him how they destroyed the German unit, all at the cost of only 22 wounded (with such always being easily said by someone who wasn't wounded). We get to have a little chuckle when Nixon goes to Winters and Winters asks him for a drink, which he then quickly clarifies "of water." Nixon opens his canteen and smells it, "Yeah, it's water." 

 

A little later, Colonel Sink tells Winters that Major Horton was killed during a German attack on the 3rd Battalion (Horton was the 3rd Battalion commander; he is buried at the American Cemetery in the Netherlands). He tells Winters he's moving him up to become the executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, and Winters is pleased, but he is torn by having to give up direct command of the Easy Company men he cares so much about. Sink tells him Lieutenant Frederick "Moose" Heyliger (played by Stephen McCole) will take over to lead Easy Company and Winters is happy with that choice. Now reality hits home, as Winters still hasn't finished the paperwork required by both Major Strayer (commander of 2nd Battalion) and Colonel Sink (commander of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment). We see that Winters is more of a combat leader, not a paperwork guy. We then see Winters behind a desk as Nixon and Heyliger come in. He introduces his orderly, Private John Zielinski (played by Adam Sims), and Nixon and Heyliger tease Winters a bit over his new position. Nixon tells Winters of an operation planned for Easy Company to rescue some British paratroopers stranded on the opposite side of the Rhine River. Winters reacts as the company commander he's been, and Nixon reminds his friend that "Easy Company is in good hands," as Heyliger looks on. As Nixon is leaving, Winters asks that he tell him if Easy Company gets into any problems with the operation. Heyliger leads Easy Company that night and the British paratroopers are brought across the river, where they give the Americans a cheer, and Winters looks over at the building where the British and Americans are, hears the cheer and he smiles. (Note: This was part of "Operation Pegasus." The large airborne-ground operation of mid September was named Market-Garden, and while some objectives were met by the Allies, many British and American paratroopers were killed, wounded or captured; however, a fairly large part of the remaining British paratroopers were able to evade capture, usually with the strong help of the Dutch resistance. The Allies finally put together "Pegasus" to rescue as many of the British paratroopers as possible. So, what you see in Band of Brothers is only part of a larger operation, but Easy Company's rescue was successful and "seemingly" 138 British Paratroopers were rescued, but some sources simply indicate the number to be more than 100.) 

    

A few nights later, Winters and Heyliger are walking along discussing Easy Company when a shout comes to halt, but then bullets fly, and Heyliger is hit and collapses. Winters shouts to cease fire and the sentry who fired runs up to Winters and Heyliger, apologizing and unable to think. Winters has to yell at him to get him moving for help. (Note: Here is one of those historical versus Hollywood scenes, as the miniseries indicates that the sentry was very young (from Wyoming, in the miniseries), although Ambrose does not name the sentry in his book, he wrote that the man was a veteran of the unit and not a recent replacement. Winters and Welsh ride with Heyliger to the aid station, and though both are officers, medic Doc Roe gives them hell for not knowing how much morphine they had given Heyliger, and they had failed to pin the used Syrette(s) on Heyliger's jacket, so that medical personnel would know how much medication he had been given. (Syrettes were small tubes of morphine that were in each man's medical kit.) 

We again see Winters in an office, when in hobbles Bill Guarnere. (Whether there was a scene filmed, but then cut from the final product, I don't know, but Guarnere talks about having been hospitalized and going AWOL (away without leave), in order to stay with Easy Company. Winters, who is glad to see Guarnere, tells him "no more joy riding," and Guarnere agrees. The Eisenhower Foundation's website says Guarnere had taken a motorcycle from a Dutch farmer and was then hit in the leg by a sniper, and when he fell, he also broke his leg. Anyway, Guarnere is back.

 

After the failure of Operation Market-Garden, the Allied situation seemed to be one of replenishing their losses and training for a push into Germany, "assumed" by some to be destined for the spring of 1945. Fresh American divisions and replacements for depleted units arrived in Europe, and they were stationed in areas "assumed" to be relatively calm, where their green troops could gain a little experience in the build-up to a major operation to end the war. Nixon talks with Winters and he tells him that General Maxwell Taylor, the divisional commander of the 101st Airborne Division, is on leave in the United States, and Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe is in charge of the division until Taylor returns. Regimental commander Colonel Sink has gone to Reims (a northern French city) to see a show for the troops by Marlene Dietrich, but Sink has given Nixon a 48 hour pass to give to Winters, so that Winters can take a little time off in Paris. (Note: While Marlene Dietrich was born in what was then just outside Berlin (it later became part of the city), she detested Hitler and the Nazis, and she refused a German offer to return to Germany to make movies; in fact, she became an American citizen. She and her close friend, producer/director Billy Wilder, started a special fund to help get Jews and others targeted by the Nazis out of Germany, and to then give them help to establish a new life. She made hundreds of appearances at shows for Allied soldiers all over Europe during the war.)  

 

Winters takes the train into Paris and he sees a young French "boy" who reminds him of the young German soldier he killed. With no ongoing military operations on his mind, his thoughts slip back in time to the combat he has been through. Winters is a "loner" type guy and he goes places in Paris by himself. The 101st Airborne was withdrawn from the Netherlands and stationed in northern France for some rest. The men are watching the movie "Seven Sinners," starring Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne, with George Luz doing his John Wayne impression, much to the annoyance of the other men who are trying to watch the picture. Luz follows that with an impression of one of Marlene Dietrich's lines in the film (Rick Gomez, who portrays Luz, is hilarious). Winters returns from Paris and walks into where the movie is being shown. He goes and sits right behind Buck Compton, who has returned from the hospital after being wounded in Holland. Winters asks Buck about the movie, but Compton just stares blankly ahead. Winters finally gets Compton to respond, but it's obvious he's not quite the same man. An officer walks in and tells the men the Germans have launched a major offensive in the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg and that all leaves are canceled. 

 

The men of the 101st Airborne Division are transported in trucks to Belgium, where they relieve American units battered in the fighting. When the men arrive, they get out of the trucks to see the demoralized American units marching out of the area. The 101st Airborne is low on ammunition, food and winter clothing. The men of Easy Company take the ammunition from the withdrawing American troops, and George Rice (played by Jimmy Fallon) of the 10th Armored Division pulls up in a jeep loaded with ammunition, but Easy Company is still short of mortar rounds. Rice tells Winters that the Germans are about to cut the last road out of the town, and that the 101st will be surrounded. Winters tells him, "We're paratroopers, we're supposed to be surrounded." Winters and Nixon meet with Colonel Sink, who tells them the 101st has to hold the town of Bastogne, because it's an important road center that has to be denied to German tanks and other vehicles. We see Easy Company and other elements of the 101st Airborne Division marching into Bastogne.   

     

Photo is of the HBO 2015 Blu-Ray Miniseries release ... 

WORD HISTORY:

Dike/Ditch-"Dike" and "ditch" are closely related words; in fact, they are variations to one another and both are related to "dig." "Dike" and "ditch" go back to Indo European "dheig," which had the notion of "to stick, to pierce;" thus also, "to dig," from the idea of a spade or other implement "piercing" the soil, in order to develop or to put something in place. This gave its Old Germanic offspring "dikaz," meaning "the result of digging drainage ditches;" thus, "a pond." This gave Old English "dic," meaning "a trench or channel dug for draining water, a digging, an excavation," and this then became "dic, dik, dich(e)," with the same meaning, before the modern form "ditch," which generally means "a trench dug, usually to drain or transport water." Note: Originally, Old English "dic" could also mean "dam, embankment used to confine water," but this then came to be differentiated from that meaning, as the pronunciation "dike" (long i) took over that meaning completely. Old English had the verb "dician" meaning "to make a ditch," but also the mixed meaning of the word back then, as it also meant "to make a mound or an embankment." The verb form "ditch" developed in the late 1300s from the noun and meant "to dig a ditch in the ground," but later the verb also took on the idea of "to throw away," and "to leave a partner" (usually a romantic relationship, but it can also be for business or friendship), with these meanings coming from the idea of "throwing something or someone into a ditch." "Dike" has the same origin in Indo European and then Old Germanic and Old English, but by circa 1500, the idea of, "throwing, piling up excavated soil to form a dam or embankment to prevent water from flowing into low lying areas," had come to be associated with "dike," especially in northern England, where many Old Norse speakers had settled (Old Norse is another Germanic language akin to English). Relatives of both words in the other Germanic languages: German has "Teich" meaning "pond," and "Deich" "dike, embankment" (but the form "Deich" was borrowed from Low German), Low German has "Diek" meaning "dike, dam" (this likely is borrowed or heavily influenced by West Frisian, as Middle Low German had "dik," which was borrowed by German as "Deich"), West Frisian has "dyk" meaning "dike, embankment to confine water," Dutch has "dijk" meaning "dike," Old Norse had "diki" meaning "morass, puddle, moat, ditch," from which Icelandic has "diki," meaning "dike," Swedish has "dika" meaning "dike, ditch;" thus also, "gully," Danish has "dige" meaning "dike."