Stephen E. Ambrose Quotes

"(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 Enlightenment taught that observation unrecorded was knowledge lost.

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.

Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction, careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steady in the maintenance of order and discipline, intimate with the Indian character, customs, and principles; habituated to the hunting life, guarded by exact observation of the vegetables and animals of his own country against losing time in the description of objects already possessed; honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding, and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves – with all these qualifications as if selected and implanted by nature in one body for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him. To fill up the measure desired, he wanted nothing but a greater familiarity with the technical language of the natural sciences, and readiness in the astronomical observations necessary for the geography of his route. To acquire these he repaired immediately to Philadelphia, and placed himself under the tutorage of the distinguished professors of that place.

Routine wears down vigilance.

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.

Jefferson could write, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

"plan your work and work your plan"

"where there is a will, there is a way"

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.

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.

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.

Dumas Malone says it perfectly: “Jefferson’s vision extended farther and comprehended more than that of anybody else in public life, and, thinking of himself as working for posterity, he was more concerned that things should be well started than that they be quickly finished.

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.

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