— Dick Winters, Beyond Band of Brothers (via thedenofcaseywolfe) —

What little enjoyment I had resulted from my daily contact with Nixon and the members of the battalion staff.  Now operating as a battalion operations officer (S-3), Captain Nixon had always been a hard man to wake up.  On one morning, I needed to get an early start to visit one of the companies, so I sent a runner to wake up Nixon.  Nixon, as usual, could not be talked into getting out of his sleeping bag, so I personally went to his darkened room.  The shutters were closed and without ceremony, I grabbed his feet while he was still in his sleeping bag and threw them over my shoulder.  I asked him, “Are you going to get up?”
“Go away, let me alone,” he mumbled.
I looked over at the bureau and saw the water pitcher was half full.  Still holding his feet over my shoulder, I grabbed the pitcher and threatened again.  "Are you going to get up?“
Again he yelled, “Go away.”
So I said, “I am going to let you have it!” and with that I started the pouring motion.
At that instant, Nixon opened his eyes and started to holler, “No!  No!”
It was already too late.  The contents were on the way, and with his, “No!  No!” I realized the content of the pitcher was piss and not water.
Nixon came sputtering and laughing from his sleeping bag in a hurry.  We both agreed that we better alter our plans and visit those showers we had been hearing about in Nijmegen.

— Shifty Powers, We Who Are Alive and Remain: Untold Stories of The Band of Brothers (via 0swalts) —

While we were in Toccoa, Captain Sobel told us, “Anybody who makes expert rifleman gets a three-day pass.” Me and one other guy, Buck Taylor, made expert. Well, Toccoa, Georgia, is three states away from Virginia, where I lived. Popeye and I were good friends by then. He asked, “You going home, Shifty?”
“Nah,” I said, “I don’t have enough money.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Popeye said. He got one of those steel helmets and walked through the barracks giving a big talk: “Shifty’s got three days off and doesn’t have enough money to get home. Everybody chip in a bit. Here—I’m going to start it with five dollars.” He placed a pill in the helmet. Everybody else threw in a dollar or fifty cents, whatever they had. Popeye handed it to me to count. “How much money you got in there, Shifty? You got enough?”
“Yeah,” I said. “In fact, I’ve got a little bit left over.”
Popeye grinned. “Then give me my damn five dollars back.”

theongreyjoyyyy:

no joke

if you ever want to make me cry in public all you have to do is mention that after the war Joseph Liebgott didnt go back to his family for three years, didnt stay in touch with any of the other soldiers and didnt go to any reunions and died not saying a word about the war to his children

—

Major Dick “How Did I Get Saddled With All These Alcoholics” Winters

jesus fucking christ, harry.

(via bal-lantine)

—

Both cognac and Calvados lay in abundance in every Norman village and farm. Lieutenant Harry Welsh had found a barrel of cognac, and I was convinced that he attempted to drink it all by himself. On one occasion he passed out in the middle of a road and there he was, lying on his reserve parachute, propped up in full view of the enemy. The Germans began zeroing in on Welsh and I had to get out there and grab him and pull him off the road. My God, he was lucky. There were times when I talked to Harry and I realized later that he hadn’t heard a word that I had said – and it was not because his hearing was bad.

I’m Compiling a List of Band of Bros Goofs/Edits/Etc

eugenevroe:

Feel free to contribute! No hate intended, it’s my favorite show after all.

1. Webster was never with Liebgott when Liebgott went on his little mission (with Speirs’ orders) to kill the German man in charge of the concentration camps. That was a guy named Moone, who indeed refused to shoot the guy.

2. Winters wasn’t exactly the super amazing, humble, quiet guy that was portrayed. I mean he was, but he wasn’t. In Winters’ own words, he could be arrogant sometimes and actually disliked Speirs (or, at least, strongly disliked how Speirs conducted himself at times), not that Winters still wasn’t absolutely fantastic. Everyone adored him.

3. Speaking of Speirs, Winters has said he actually had not been planning on Speirs to relieve Dike at Foy. When Winters turned to yell at someone, Speirs just happened to be there and Winters sent him on his way. Winters was prepared to literally just about send anyone.

4. Speaking of Dike, Dike wasn’t the terrible guy he was portrayed to be. I mean, he could be flaky, but he won the bronze star for rescuing three injured soldiers under heavy fire and another for leading the protecting of a road/pathway/bridge with a bunch of random men from various companies in Holland. At Foy, as he charged, he was shot in the shoulder and went into shock, freezing up, unable to do anything, probably because he was too busy thinking about how he almost died (a good leader would still, undoubtedly, move on).

5. Eugene Roe’s grandmother was not a faith healer, nor was he that gentle. The actual Roe was known to be a little more rough and tumble, but always dependable. The men loved him.

6. On D-Day, in Band of Brothers, it is portrayed that Guarnere shot down an entire German patrol, horses and all. This did not actually happen. Guarnere didn’t even have a gun, like Winters, until after the patrol was taken out.

7. John Hall does not land near Winters during D-Day. He joins up later at some point.

8. Winters actually did have a heavy Mennonite background (I feel as though it’s implied otherwise, though not explicitly stated)

9. In Holland, Winters never shot the kid who smiled at him. It was a full grown man, who did indeed smile at him. Winters also said, if he had seen the train scene beforehand, he would have told them to take it out. He wasn’t “affected in that way” by the killing he had to do.

10. Albert Blithe did not die of his wounds after episode 2. His family came out to say that he lived well afterward, but died of a stomach ulcer.

11. Joe Liebgott, though he did know German, was actually not a Jew.

12. When Webster is reunited with Easy Company after his injury, they were never cold to him. In fact, they were ecstatic to have him back and welcomed him with open arms. He was well-liked among the men.

— From Pvt. Art “Jumbo” DiMarzio’s of Dog Company interview.(x)
—

I was going to Southern France to get aboard on a ship to come back home. By this time, Lt.Speirs had been made a Captain, a company commander of another company (Easy). I didn’t see him as often as I did before, I was in this boxcar they use to haul us in and as the train was pulling out, this Captain Speirs ran up along the side of the train waving at me and yelling, “I’ll see you, Jumbo! I’ll see you, Jumbo!” And in response, Pvt. DiMarzio said, “Take it easy Captain, Take it easy! I’ll see you later!”

A I