Beyond Band of Brothers by Major Dick Winters, Colonel Cole C. Kingseed Read Free Book Online

Nor was he cut out for the field grade officer. Better suited for administrative duties, Sobel stayed in Easy Company until imminent combat conditions dictated his reassignment—but that was all in the future.
    Interpersonal relationships and command problems aside, training at Toccoa remained as demanding as ever. After several weeks of intense physical training, Colonel Sink lined up a C-47 Dakota aircraft to qualify his officers before the bulk of the troops arrived for basic infantry training. The airstrip at Camp Toccoa had been constructed by leveling the top of “Dick’s Hill,” a medium-sized hill that the Le Tourneau Earth-Moving Company had lopped off about halfway up and flattened for an airstrip. The landing strip was very short and built to take care of Piper Cubs, not Army C-47s. The length of the runway required that a C-47, in taking off with a load of jumpers, could just barely get airborne by the end of the strip. To reach flying speed, the pilot had to dive the plane parallel to the downward slope of the mountain. That was a real thrill. To land the plane, the pilot could not stop while going in a straight line, so, as he came near the edge of the mountain, he had to turn left or right, as the wing of the plane extended over the edge of the slope. It was much safer to jump from the plane than to land in it.
    To determine who would serve as jumpmaster of the first contingent of officers, Sink conducted a “Junior Olympics.” The competition consisted of the best time up and down Currahee, most push-ups, most chin-ups, and the best time through the obstacle course. First Lieutenant Wally Moore was the only man to beat me on that run up Currahee when my legs cramped. I won the overall competition, however, and was rewarded by becoming number one jumper in the first stick to jump at Toccoa. As the aircraft climbed to 1,000 feet, it circled over the drop zone and decelerated to around ninety miles per hour. A RegularArmy sergeant instructed us to “stand up and hook up.” Hooking my static line to the anchor cable, I placed my left foot on the edge of the open door. Gazing down to the drop zone, I looked over the cornfields below and placed both hands on the outside edge of the plane. The green light came on and the sergeant yelled, “Go!”
    Out I stepped into thin air and the inexorable force of nature took over as gravity carried me downward. It was an exhilarating feeling, but I experienced no sensation of falling. On my initial jump, I almost caught my chute in the high-tension line running through the cornfield that was also our landing field. Having landed safely, I was back up with the other officers until we all made five jumps by evening. We were now airborne qualified and could “blouse our boots,” the traditional mark of an airborne soldier. Colonel Sink ran three or four groups of officers through this system of qualification before the plane had an accident while landing on the field. He determined that this method of qualification was too dangerous, so the remainder of the regiment qualified at Fort Benning. That night the officers congregated at the officers’ club to celebrate our newly acquired status as airborne officers. The liquor flowed freely and I received my share of good-natured ribbing because I was a teetotaler.
    Every soldier who endures basic training emerges with stories that evolve with passing years. Both Sink and Strayer developed innovative training programs to bolster our morale and to foster unit cohesion. Before the regiment left Toccoa, Colonel Sink directed that a final physical test be conducted to eliminate unsuitable men from the regiment. Companies were rotated through the testing center, with noncommissioned officers from other battalions judging the individual stations. One of the men, Burt Christianson, remembered that the day before the test, Easy Company was primed and ready, confident that the men were now in the