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… - Donald Malarkey

When General Maxwell Taylor, back in the war zone after conveniently missing a tiny skirmish called the Battle of the Bulge, came through for an inspection, I mentally rolled my eyes. "Sergeant, were you wearing your helmet when it was hit?" he asked, looking at a helmet with a chunk missing after I'd taken a bullet from that P-47 that the krauts had apparently stolen and used to dive-bomb us. I wanted to shake my head and say, "What do you think?" Instead I said, "Yes, sir." "Well, in that case you can continue wearing it." The incident showed how little the pencil-pushing brass knew about frontline duty. Anyone with a helmet with that kind of damage wouldn't have had a friggin' head if the helmet hadn't been on his head when he was hit. I continued to wear it. And would have even if he'd told me I couldn't.

The previous July, two months after V-E Day, I was on a three-day pass and wound up in the "U" section of one of Hitler's stadiums in a city called Worms. In the morning, the head of the facility came to me, the ranking noncom, and asked us to come salute Patton, who was coming by for an inspection. At the appointed hour, we heard sirens. Motorcycles led Patton's staff car in, flags flying. His car stopped. I called our group to attention. Patton looked us over and said something about the 101st Airborne Division I'll never forget: "If I had two divisions of you bastards, I would have had the Germans blowing straws up their asses by Thanksgiving and you would have been home by Christmas."

General Taylor spoke but we couldn't hear a word he said; a formation of C-47s passed over about that time. But we heard the names of the dead. All 414. I never talked with any of my buddies about that day, but I wondered if we were all wondering about the same two things: if the list would ever end. And if, down the road, our names would ever be on it.