The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals - Brett McKay [45]
Exert that noblest privilege, alone,
Here to mankind indulged; control desire:
Let god-like reason, from her sovereign throne,
Speak the commanding word ‘I will!’ and it is done.”
—James Thomson
Determination Is the Answer
From We Who Are Alive and Remain: Untold Stories
FROM THE BAND OF Brothers, 2009
By Marcus Brotherton
The story of the Band of Brothers, World War II’s Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, has in recent times been made famous by historian Stephen Ambrose’s book and the HBO miniseries which chronicled their legendary exploits. It is a story that embodies and speaks to every quality of true manliness; while the men would never call themselves such, they are truly modern-day heroes.
After parachute drops and fighting in D-Day and Operation Market Garden, the men of Easy Company were sent to Mourmelon, France, for some much needed R&R. But less than two weeks later they were called to defend the Belgian town of Bastogne as part of the larger Battle of the Bulge. Having to quickly move out, the men were severely lacking in ammunition, winter clothing, and other supplies. Surrounded by German troops, the men dug in for an intense fight in the bitter cold. Having arrived on December 17, 1945, it would be a long month before Easy Company was pulled off the line and given hot food, showers, and a few days rest.
For Easy Company men like Clancy Lyall, Herb Suerth Jr., and Bill Wingett, Bastogne was the ultimate test of their hardihood and resolve; their experiences put the little annoyances that bother us each day in proper perspective.
CLANCY LYALL
We made our defensive perimeter in the Bois Jacques woods. The next day we woke up and a snow was coming down like you never saw. I was wearing my same old green jumpsuit—it wasn’t designed to keep out the cold. I had an M-1 and a bandolier, a few K rations, a field jacket, and a towel around my neck. After a while I was able to find an overcoat. I took one from a dead GI, one of ours, an infantry guy.
To stay warm you got close to each other. You can’t make fires. If you’re lucky enough to have a blanket, it gets wet so it doesn’t do much good. You never take your boots off and leave them off. If you do, your feet freeze up. In the nighttime we went on patrols, so those help you stay warm. You never really sleep; you get two, three cat winks then hear a round and that wakes you up. You got used to going without sleep. After a while you can walk sleeping.
For shelter, we found tree limbs to put over our foxholes. I knew guys who put frozen German corpses over the top of their holes to insulate against the cold. I never did. Your hands got so cold, guys urinated on their hands to warm them up. You did the same thing with your M-1. If your bolt was stuck, it wouldn’t fire. What the hell are you going to have it for then? So guys pissed on their rifles, jacked the bolt back a couple of times, and it was all right.
You couldn’t shower. You were so dirty you smelled a guy from twenty yards away. But everybody smelled the same, so what the hell. There was only one time in my life I smelled worse. Years later, in Korea, I jumped and landed in a rice paddy. They had put human feces in there and I landed in that sonuvabitch. I bathed and I bathed but it took me months to get rid of the smell. It was like a skunk had sprayed me.
One day in Bastogne I got hit. I had no place to go. It was just a graze across my forehead. Maybe a little bit better than a graze—it put a line across my skull. They bandaged me up at an aid station. I got a cup of hot coffee and spent the night. The next day I was back in my foxhole.
Things got a bit shaky around that time. I have to say something at this point: airborne outfits that go into combat are supposed to be relieved within three to five days. But it never happened; not with us, anyway. Normandy was thirty-four days combat. Holland was seventy-four days combat. When we got to Mourmelon, it was right into battle again. By the time we got into Bastogne,