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We'd heard from guys in Bastogne that the 101st was making headlines back home. We'd broken the German siege. Beaten the odds. All at a time when new… - Donald Malarkey
" "We'd heard from guys in Bastogne that the 101st was making headlines back home. We'd broken the German siege. Beaten the odds. All at a time when newspapers were looking for good hero stories and citizens looking for hope. But, believe me, we soldiers in those Bastogne foxholes weren't feeling particularly heroic. What we mainly felt was cold. Our beards grew longer, our patience shorter. The snow resumed, now halfway to our knees. It would snow again every day for a week. Somehow it didn't seem to bother the German planes, which were harassing us day and night. We had been on the front lines for fifteen days in Belgium, on top of seventy in Holland and twenty-three in Normandy. A total of 108 days, not that anybody was counting. In war, you count days the way prisoners mark walls. Will this ever end? Will we ever make it out alive? Will I get home to be with Bernice and pick blackberries? Will Skip marry Faye Tanner and live happily ever after? Such questions rattled around in your mind here and there, between the short spurts of combat and the much longer nights.
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About Donald Malarkey
Technical Sergeant Donald George Malarkey (July 31, 1921 – September 30, 2017) was a non-commissioned officer with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army during World War II. Malarkey was portrayed in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers by Scott Grimes.
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Donald George Malarkey
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Additional quotes by Donald Malarkey
We'd heard that General Taylor was now back in Bastogne. Everybody was ordered to shave within twenty-four hours and to remove their boots once a day and massage their feet. I refused the foot order, having tried and found it only made things worse. Come to think of it, I refused the shaving order, too, as did most of us.
One afternoon, in the basement bar of the Regent Palace Hotel, I noticed two red-beret sergeants from the British 1st Airborne Division sitting down the way. In London, these guys were honored above all; nobody in a red beret was to be arrested for drunkenness. Eventually they noticed my 101st Airborne patch, the screaming eagle. "We owe a tip of the hat to the 101st," said one. "Got us across the Rhine one black night after we'd been trapped behind enemy lines." I jiggled the ice cubes in my Scotch. "I knew," I said. "That was my company, E Company, 506th." They scoffed a bit and looked around each other, obviously thinking that I was trying to take some credit that wasn't due me. "Oh, really?" one said with a touch of doubt. "Yeah," I said. "I was on the rescue team." "Well, of course you were, old chap- so was my dead aunt Lucille," said one, and they both laughed. My Scotch was settling in. I paused, then took another sip. "Say, how's that tank sergeant, the commander from the Seventh Armored Division who headed up that outfit known as the Rats of Tobruk? Guy was in my boat." Their eyes widened. "After we got him safely across the Rhine, he told me his wife had already been a widow and he was gettin' out of this 'bloody war.'" They froze in silence, then one of them cleared his throat. "To E Company," he said, holding up his drink. I clinked my glass with the others and nodded, then held mine high. "To E Company."
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