101st Airborne Quotes

In one of his last newsletters, Mike Ranney wrote: "In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I'm treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?' No,'" I answered, 'but I served in a company of heroes.

Within Easy Company they had made the best friends they had ever had, or would ever have. They were prepared to die for each other; more important, they were prepared to kill for each other.

We know how to win wars. We must learn now to win peace...

Chickenshit is so called - instead of horse- or bull- or elephant shit - because it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously.

We can't make you do anything, but we can make you wish you had. - Army saying

It all happened," Lipton summed up, "because Shifty saw a tree almost a mile away that hadn't been there the day before.

If you're one of those delusional 2nd Amendment types who believes you and your trailer park 'militia' might need to take on the Army, the Navy, the 101st Airborne and SEAL Team 6; not only should you be denied the right to bear arms -- but the right to your belt & shoelaces as well ... 'cause you're stark, ravin' batshit!!!

Hitler made only one big mistake when he built his Atlantic Wall,” the paratroopers liked to say. “He forgot to put a roof on it.

Ronald Spiers: The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it.

Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that 'they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn't come here to fear. They hadn't come to die. They had come to win.

Older British observers complained, "The trouble with you Yanks is that you are overpaid, oversexed, and over here." (To which the Yanks would reply, "The trouble with you Limeys is that you are underpaid, undersexed, and under Eisenhower.")

Anything was better than the blood and carnage, the grime and filth, the impossible demands made on the body—anything, that is, except letting down their buddies.

The first man stepped up to the open door. All the men had been ordered to look out at the horizon, not straight down, for obvious psychological reasons.

The men were told that Currahee was an Indian word that meant “We stand alone,” which was the way these paratroopers expected to fight. It became the battle cry of the 506th.

Speirs was an officer with a reputation. Slim, fairly tall, dark hair, stern, ruggedly handsome, he cultivated the look of a leader, and acted it.

The medics were the most popular, respected, and appreciated men in the company. Their weapons were first-aid kits, their place on the line was wherever a man called out that he was wounded.

They were white, because the U.S. Army in World War II was segregated. With three exceptions, they were unmarried. Most had been hunters and athletes in high school.

you liked him so much you just hated to let him down.” He was, and is, all but worshiped by the men of E Company.

At the hangars, each jumpmaster was given two packs of papers, containing an order of the day from Eisenhower and a message from Colonel Sink, to pass around to the men. “Tonight is the night of nights,” said Sink’s. “May God be with

When a man was hit hard enough for evacuation, he was usually very happy, and we were happy for him—he had a ticket out to the hospital, or even a ticket home—alive. “When a man was killed—he looked ‘so peaceful.’ His suffering was over.

The looting was profitable, fun, low-risk, and completely in accord with the practice of every conquering army since Alexander the Great’s time.

I firmly believe that only a combat soldier has the right to judge another combat soldier.

(In Austria after VE Day) Sergeant Mercier...dressed in a full German officer's uniform, topped off with a monocle for his right eye. Someone got the bright idea to march him over to the company orderly room and turn him in at rifle point to Captain Speirs. Someone got word to Speirs before Mercier showed up. When troopers brought Mercier up to Speirs's desk, prodding him with bayonets, Speirs did not look up. One of the troopers snapped a salute and declared, "Sir, we have captured this German officer. What should we do with him?" "Take him out and shoot him," Speirs replied, not looking up. "Sir," Mercier called out, "sir, please, sir, it's me, Sergeant Mercier." "Mercier, get out of that silly uniform," Speirs ordered.

The Easy Company men began throwing grenades at the retreating enemy. Compton had been an All-American catcher on the UCLA baseball team. The distance to the fleeing enemy was about the same as from home plate to second base. Compton threw his grenade on a straight line—no arch—and it hit a German in the head as it exploded. He,

He generated maximum anxiety over matters of minimum significance.

General John L. Throckmorton set up the headquarters of the 101st Airborne at Southeastern High, where my parents had gone to school.

In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I’m treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, ‘Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?’ “ ‘No,’ I answered, ‘but I served in a company of heroes.’ 

Each man in his own way had gone through what Richard Winters experienced: a realization that doing his best was a better way of getting through the Army than hanging around with the sad excuses for soldiers they met in the recruiting depots or basic training. They wanted to make their Army time positive, a learning and maturing and challenging experience.

Winters and Welsh simply walked toward the man, who took off. The Americans split the silverware between them. Forty-five years later, both men were still using the Berchtesgaden Hof’s silverware in their homes. After getting what he most wanted out of the place, Winters then

THE SHEEPDOGS Most humans truly are like sheep Wanting nothing more than peace to keep To graze, grow fat and raise their young, Sweet taste of clover on the tongue. Their lives serene upon Life’s farm, They sense no threat nor fear no harm. On verdant meadows, they forage free With naught to fear, with naught to flee. They pay their sheepdogs little heed For there is no threat; there is no need. To the flock, sheepdog’s are mysteries, Roaming watchful round the peripheries. These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar With the fetid reek of the carnivore, Too like the wolf of legends told, To be amongst our docile fold. Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they? They have no use, not in this day. Lock them away, out of our sight We have no need of their fierce might. But sudden in their midst a beast Has come to kill, has come to feast The wolves attack; they give no warning Upon that calm September morning They slash and kill with frenzied glee Their passive helpless enemy Who had no clue the wolves were there Far roaming from their Eastern lair. Then from the carnage, from the rout, Comes the cry, “Turn the sheepdogs out!” Thus is our nature but too our plight To keep our dogs on leashes tight And live a life of illusive bliss Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss. Until he has us by the throat, We pay no heed; we take no note. Not until he strikes us at our core Will we unleash the Dogs of War Only having felt the wolf pack’s wrath Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path. And the wolves will learn what we’ve shown before; We love our sheep, we Dogs of War. Russ Vaughn 2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne Division Vietnam 65-66

The men of Easy Company lined the rails to see the Statue of Liberty slip astern. For nearly every one of them, it was his first trip outside the United States. A certain homesickness set in, coupled with a realization, as the regimental scrapbook Currahee put it, of “how wonderful the last year had been.

Paul Fussell has described the two stages of rationalization a combat soldier goes through—it can’t happen to me, then it can happen to me, unless I’m more careful—followed by a stage of “accurate perception: it is going to happen to me, and only my not being there [on the front lines] is going to prevent it.

Is it accidental that so many ex-paratroopers from E company became teachers? Perhaps for some men a period of violence and destruction at one time attracts them to look for something creative as a balance in another part of life. We seem also to have a disproportionate number of builders of houses and other things in the group we see at reunions.

Army was boring, unfeeling, and chicken, and hated it. They found combat to be ugliness, destruction, and death, and hated it. Anything was better than the blood and carnage, the grime and filth, the impossible demands made on the body—anything, that is, except letting down their buddies. They also found in combat the closest brotherhood they ever knew. They found selflessness. They found they could love the other guy in their foxhole more than themselves. They found that in war, men who loved life would give their lives for them.

Sobel was Jewish, urban, with a commission from the National Guard. Hester had started as a private, then earned his commission from Officer Candidate’s School (OCS). Most

You lead by fear or you lead by example. We were being led by fear.

They knew fear together. Not only the fear of death or wound, but the fear that all this was for nothing.

Paul Fussell, in his book Wartime, has the best definition:

someone

If you want to be a hero, the Germans will make one out of you real quick—dead!

and see a fire burning in town.

discipline relies on punishment, and there is no punishment the Army can inflict on a front-line soldier worse than putting him into the front line.3

We can’t make you do anything, but we can make you wish you had.

Currahee!

In a foxhole, the past and, more important, the future do not exist. The only thing in the world that matters is the moment

When the shooting started, they wanted to look up to the guy beside them, not down.

precious are saved only by sacrifice.

I had come to take Roosevelt for granted,” Webster wrote his parents, “like spring and Easter lilies, and now that he is gone, I feel a little lost.

the human eye is lustful; it craves the novel, the unusual, the spectacular.

Discipline won’t do it, because discipline relies on punishment, and there is no punishment the Army can inflict on a front-line soldier worse than putting him into the front line.3

The replacements, eighteen-and nineteen-year-olds fresh from the States, were wide-eyed. Although the veterans were only a year or two older, they looked terrifying to the recruits.

The result of these shared experiences was a closeness unknown to all outsiders. Comrades are closer than friends, closer than brothers. Their relationship is different from that of lovers. Their trust in, and knowledge of, each other is total. They got to know each other's life stories, what they did before they came into the Army, where and why they volunteered, what they liked to eat and drink, what their capabilities were. On a night march they would hear a cough and know who it was; on a night maneuver they would see someone sneaking through the woods and know who it was from his silhouette.

El hecho de que oficiales y soldados rasos se vinieran abajo bajo la constante tensión y vulnerabilidad no es nada extraordinario. Lo verdaderamente extraordinario es que tantos hombres no se hundiesen.

Winters, Matheson, Nixon, and the others existed,” Private Rader remembered. “These were first-class people, and to think these men would care and share their time and efforts with us seemed a miracle. They

All this was part of the initiation rites common to all armies. So was learning to drink. Beer, almost exclusively, at the post PX, there being no nearby towns. Lots of beer. They sang soldiers’ songs. Toward

The experiences of men in combat produces emotions stronger than civilians can know, emotions of terror, panic, anger, sorrow, bewilderment, helplessness, uselessness, and each of these feelings drained energy and mental stability.

That extra special, elite, close feeling started under the stress Capt. Sobel created at Camp Toccoa. Under that stress, the only way the men could survive was to bond together. Eventually, the noncoms had to bond together in a mutiny.

In one of his last newsletters, Mike Ranney wrote: “In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I’m treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, ‘Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?’ “ ‘No,’ I answered, ‘but I served in a company of heroes.

Despite himself, Webster was drawn to the people. “The Germans I have seen so far have impressed me as clean, efficient, law-abiding people,” he wrote his parents on April 14. They were churchgoers. “In Germany everybody goes out and works and, unlike the French, who do not seem inclined to lift a finger to help themselves, the Germans fill up the trenches soldiers have dug in their fields. They are cleaner, more progressive, and more ambitious than either the English or the French.”1

There is not a day that has passed since that I do not thank Adolf Hitler for allowing me to be associated with the most talented and inspiring group of men that I have ever known.” Every member of Easy interviewed by this author for this book said something similar.

There was an excess of drinking, whoring, fighting. Older British observers complained, “The trouble with you Yanks is that you are overpaid, oversexed, and over here.” (To which the Yanks would reply, “The trouble with you Limeys is that you are underpaid, undersexed, and under Eisenhower.”)

Before lying down, Winters later wrote in his diary, “I did not forget to get on my knees and thank God for helping me to live through this day and ask for his help on D plus one.” And he made a promise to himself: if he lived through the war, he was going to find an isolated farm somewhere and spend the remainder of his life in peace and quiet.

They knew they were going into great danger. They knew they would be doing more than their part. They resented having to sacrifice years of their youth to a war they never made. They wanted to throw baseballs, not grenades, shoot a .22 rifle, not an M-1. But having been caught up in the war, they decided to be as positive as possible in their Army careers.

Adding to the problems of frustration and anger caused by the point system was the combination of too much liquor, too many pistols, and too many captured vehicles. Road accidents were almost as dangerous to the 101st in Austria as the German Army had been in Belgium. In the first three weeks in Austria, there were seventy wrecks, more in the six weeks of June and July. Twenty men were killed, nearly 100 injured.

They were returning to Mourmelon, but not to the barracks. This time they were billeted in large green twelve-man wall tents, about a mile outside what Webster called “the pathetically shabby garrison village of Mourmelon, abused by soldiers since Caesar’s day, consisting of six bars, two whorehouses, and a small Red Cross club.” In Webster’s scathing judgment, “Mourmelon was worse than Fayetteville, North Carolina.

[Currahee was more a hill than a mountain, but it rose 1,000 feet above the parade ground and dominated the landscape.] A few minutes later, someone blew a whistle. We fell in, were ordered to change to boots and athletic trunks, did so, fell in again—and then ran most of the three miles to the top and back down again.” They lost some men that first day. Within a week, they were running—or at least double-timing—all the way up and back.

Chickenshit refers to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige; sadism thinly disguised as necessary discipline; a constant ‘paying off of old scores’; and insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances. Chickenshit is so called—instead of horse- or bull- or elephant shit—because it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously.

f-word. It substituted for adjectives, nouns, and verbs. It was used, for example, to describe the cooks: “those f——ers,” or “f——ing cooks”; what they did: “f——ed it up again”; and what they produced. David Kenyon Webster, a Harvard English major, confessed that he found it difficult to adjust to the “vile, monotonous, and unimaginative language.” The language made these boys turning into men feel tough and, more important, insiders, members of a group. Even Webster got used to it, although never to like it.

Both learned that the cost of protecting our freedom, or freedom of the oppressed, carries with it the highest cost of life itself. We should not debate over which war was right or which was wrong.

General Maxwell Taylor warned his men in the 101st Airborne that fighting at night would be highly confusing. They would find it hard to distinguish their own side from the enemy. For that reason they should fight with their knives and grenades during darkness, and use firearms only after dawn. According to one of his men, ‘he also said that if you were to take prisoners, they handicap our ability to perform our mission. We were going to have to dispose of prisoners as best we saw fit.’ Brigadier

German soldiers wearing U.S. uniforms had misdirected U.S. forces, and soon units of the 101st Airborne Division found themselves encircled in a trap at Bastogne in Belgium.

The medics were the most popular, respected, and appreciated men in the company. Their weapons were first-aid kits, their place on the line was wherever a man called out that he was wounded. Lieutenant Foley had special praise for Pvt. Eugene Roe. “He was there when he was needed, and how he got ‘there’ you often wondered. He never received recognition for his bravery, his heroic servicing of the wounded. I recommended him for a Silver Star after a devastating fire-fight when his exploits were typically outstanding. Maybe I didn’t use the proper words and phrases, perhaps Lieutenant Dike didn’t approve, or somewhere along the line it was cast aside. I don’t know. I never knew except that if any man who struggled in the snow and the cold, in the many attacks through the open and through the woods, ever deserved such a medal, it was our medic, Gene Roe.

the

The staunch defense of Bastogne had impeded the Fifth Panzer Army drive to the west, just as the desperate rear guard battle by the 7th Armored at St. Vith had slowed the advance of the Sixth, demonstrating the axiom of World War I that no salient thrust into the defender's position can be expanded rapidly and successfully if the shoulders of the salient are firmly held by the defender. The human cost of the Bastogne battle, therefore, probably was not out of proportion to the military gains achieved. The 101st Airborne Division suffered battle casualties numbering 105 officers and 1,536 men. CCB of the 10th Armored Division had approximately 25 officers and 478 men as battle casualties. There is no means of numbering the killed, wounded, and missing in the miscellany of unrecorded tankers, gunners, infantry, and others who shared in the defense of Bastogne. Nor can any casualty roster now be compiled of those units which fought east of Bastogne prior to 19 December and gave the 101st Airborne Division the time and the tactical opportunity to array itself in the defense of that town.

drops

experiments

Carolina,

The paratroopers have landed,” the voice on the radio said, “and all around me, they’re freeing themselves from their chutes.” Dr. Rashid leaned forward, hanging on every word. Tonight’s broadcast was coming all the way from Holland, where soldiers from the 101st Airborne had been dispatched to capture the bridges along the Dutch/Belgian border.

Rather than calling for the white citizens of Little Rock to show Christian love toward the black students, Rice mocked “the wholly selfish and political attitude of the NAACP radical leaders, by socialists and communists, by modernist ‘do-gooders’ who have no other gospel but questions of race and pacifism and labor unions.” He continued:   The nine Negro children were selected by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and on their instructions and to make a public issue.. wholly for political and propaganda purposes…and not for the good of the students themselves, attempted to transfer to Central High School…The Negroes already had a high school equally as good, newer and less crowded…To force integration, President Eisenhower called out units of the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, who took over somewhat as “occupation troops.” Citizens were barred from certain streets. Some [whites] were clubbed in the head by soldiers. The nine Negro students went to Central High School.[176]

When the Germans broke through and created the bulge and surrounded us, they identified the 101st Airborne as the ones surrounded. They though we were goners, I guess, so it was news. The 101st is surrounded! That's not news for a paratrooper.

On December 22, General McAuliffe of the 101st Airborne in Bastogne received a pretty long letter from the German commander, asking him to surrender the town or be destroyed. McAuliffe’s reply was just one word: Nuts! Then he handed the paper back to the German messenger. The dude looked at it, didn’t understand, and asked

Everybody knew that the only way for the United States to get out of Afghanistan was by creating a strong Afghan Army. The 101st called their effort to achieve this shonna ba shonna, translated as “shoulder to shoulder.

Pvt. Len Griffing, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne: In the serenity of England, in our own camp, invading France seemed to be a lot easier than it turned out to be. Flight (Warrant) Officer Charles E.

The desire to be better than the other guy took hold.

And I was thinking, Oh man, so this is a rice paddy, yes, wow! when I suddenly heard an electric guitar shooting right up in my ear and a mean, rapturous black voice singing, coaxing, 'Now c'mon baby, stop actin' so crazy,' and when I got it all together I turned to see a grinning black corporal hunched over a cassette recorder. 'Might's well,' he said. 'We ain' goin' nowhere till them gunships come.' ¶ That's the story of the first time I ever heard Jimi Hendrix, but in a war where a lot of people talked about Aretha's 'Satisfaction' the way other people speak of Brahms' Fourth, it was more than a story; it was Credentials. 'Say, that Jimi Hendrix is my main man,' someone would say. 'He has definitely got his shit together!' Hendrix had once been in the 101st Airborne, and the Airborne in Vietnam was full of wiggy-brilliant spades like him, really mean and really good, guys who always took care of you when things got bad. That music meant a lot to them. I never once heard it played over the Armed Forces Radio Network.

COL Nicholas Young Retires from the United States Army after More than Thirty -Six Years of Distinguished Service to our Nation 2 September 2020 The United States Army War College is pleased to announce the retirement of United States Army War College on September 1, 2020. COL Young’s recent officer evaluation calls him “one of the finest Colonel’s in the United States Army who should be promoted to Brigadier General. COL Young has had a long and distinguished career in the United States Army, culminating in a final assignment as a faculty member at the United States Army War College since 2015. COL Young served until his mandatory retirement date set by federal statue. His long career encompassed just shy of seven years enlisted time before serving for thirty years as a commissioned officer.He first joined the military in 1984, serving as an enlisted soldier in the New Hampshire National Guard before completing a tour of active duty in the U.S, Army Infantry as a non-commissioned officer with the 101st Airborne (Air Assault). He graduated from Officer Candidate School in 1990, was commissioned in the Infantry, and then served as a platoon leader and executive officer in the Massachusetts Army National Guard before assuming as assignment as the executive officer of HHD, 3/18th Infantry in the U.S. Army Reserves. He made a branch transfer to the Medical Service Corps in 1996. COL Young has since served as a health services officer, company executive officer, hospital medical operations officer, hospital adjutant, Commander of the 287th Medical Company (DS), Commander of the 455th Area Support Dental, Chief of Staff of the 804th Medical Brigade, Hospital Commander of the 405th Combat Support Hospital and Hospital Commander of the 399th Combat Support Hospital. He was activated to the 94th Regional Support Command in support of the New York City terrorist attacks in 2001. COL Young is currently a faculty instructor at the U.S. Army War College. He is a graduate of basic training, advanced individual infantry training, Air Assault School, the primary leadership development course, the infantry officer basic course, the medical officer basic course, the advanced medical officer course, the joint medical officer planning course, the company commander leadership course, the battalion/brigade commander leadership course, the U.S. Air War College (with academic honors), the U.S. Army War College and the U.S. Naval War College (with academic distinction).

There was only one justification for the use of troops; to uphold the law. Though Faubus denied it, I, as President of the United States, now had that justification and the clear obligation to act ... the 101st Airborne Division, from nearby Fort Campbell, Kentucky, arrived in Little Rock; another five hundred moved in later the same day.

Russ Vaughn, a member of the fabled 101st Airborne Division who had served in Vietnam, published a widely circulated poem that told how the Swifties had won the “last battle of Vietnam.” The poem ended with “To our Brothers, forever, on that long black wall / You’ve been vindicated now, one and all.

Gordon wrote to Mayor Ritsema: “On September 17, 1944 I participated in the large airborne operation which was conducted to liberate your country. As a member of company E, 506th PIR, I landed near the small town of Son. The following day we moved south and liberated Eindhoven. While carrying out our assignment, we suffered casualties. That is war talk for bleeding. We occupied various defense positions for over two months. Like animals, we lived in holes, barns, and as best we could. The weather was cold and wet. In spite of the adverse conditions, we held the ground we had fought so hard to capture. “The citizens of Holland at that time did not share your aversion to bloodshed when the blood being shed was that of the German occupiers of your city. How soon we forget. History has proven more than once that Holland could again be conquered if your neighbor, the Germans, are having a dull weekend and the golf links are crowded. “Please don’t allow your country to be swallowed up by Liechtenstein or the Vatican as I don’t plan to return. As of now, you are on your own.

sense of fatalism. Pvt. Ken Webster of the 101st Airborne expressed his feelings and insights in a letter to his mother: “I am living on borrowed time. . . . If I don’t come back, try not to take it too hard. I wish I could persuade you to regard death as casually as we do over here. In the heat of battle you expect casualties, you expect somebody to be killed and you are not surprised when a friend is machine-gunned in the face. You have to keep going. It’s not like civilian

One night back in the 1970s, I was driving home to my quarters at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where I had commanded the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division for about a year, when I saw in the dark a soldier walking along the road heading for the gate. He probably lived with his wife in the trailer park just outside the gate. I stopped and offered him a ride. “Why are you going home so late?” I asked him as we drove along. “My buddies and I’ve been working hard to get ready for an inspector general inspection coming up,” he answered. Then he looked at me. “Sir, who are you?” he asked. “I’m your brigade commander,” I told him, taken aback. “How long have you been in command?” he asked. “Over a year,” I said. “Is it a good job?” he asked. “Yes, great,” I replied. Jeez, after a year of being all over the brigade area, here is a soldier who doesn’t recognize me. Something’s wrong. “How do you think you guys will do in the inspection?” I then asked. “We’ll do great,” he answered. “We’ve been working hard for weeks, and my captain, lieutenants, and sergeants have been pushing us. They’ve been telling us how important the inspection is; they’ve been working just as hard as we have.” Then he said simply, “We’re not going to let them down.

The list seemed endless; each soldier’s name evoked a memory, an image of youthful vigor, a sense of incalculable loss. “I knew them all.”515

Dwight Eisenhower saw a nation pregnant with economic opportunity and gave it stretch marks in the 55,000 miles of Interstate highways while sending in the 101st Airborne Division to protect the first African American children going to Little Rock’s Central High School.

infuriated Eisenhower, who dispatched the 101st Airborne Division and federalized the Arkansas National Guard. Military protection ensured that the nine black students slated to attend Central High were not barred.

101st Airborne,

Army’s most famous division, the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles.

.45 automatic pistol,