Beyond Band of Brothers (32 page)

Carwood Lipton, whom many considered the best noncommissioned officer in the company, returned to civilian life after the war where he received an engineering degree from Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. He remained active in the Army Reserves as commanding officer of Headquarters Company, 3d Battalion, 398th PIR, until after the Korean war, but his unit was not called to active duty. Carwood Lipton proved as adept in the corporate world as he had been in leading soldiers in combat. After a career as an executive with Owens-Illinois, a manufacturer of glass products and plastics
packaging, Lipton retired in 1983. In the last two decades of his life, he traveled throughout the world and enjoyed his hobbies of golf and reading. On the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day, Lipton said what most of us had felt as we boarded the aircraft destined to carry us to Normandy on June 5, 1944: “If we were afraid of anything, it was that we wouldn't measure up. We wanted to be heroes: not to the American public or in books, but to each other.” His words proved to be a fitting epitaph. Carwood Lipton died at the age of eighty-one in Southern Pines, North Carolina, from pulmonary fibrosis in December 2001.

Denver “Bull” Randleman followed Lipton in June 2003. Bull was one of the finest noncoms in Easy Company. Like most of the men, he became a highly successful businessman and served for years as the superintendent of a heavy-construction contractor in Louisiana. He spent his last years in Texarkana, Arkansas, where he succumbed to a staph infection at the age of eighty-two in June 2003.

David Webster, a veteran of Easy Company, always said that Sergeant Johnny Martin was the sharpest soldier in the company. After the war Johnny Martin used his G.I. Bill at The Ohio State University before returning to his old job with the railroad. In 1981 he decided to start a new career as housing contractor. Within years he became a millionaire. A frequent attendee at Easy Company reunions, he usually arrived in a fancy car that flaunted his high financial status. With each passing year, he expressed his desire: “to stay alive—that's all.” Johnny Martin passed away in late January 2005, which left only one survivor from 1st Platoon from Toccoa days. When I received a call that he had passed on, I could not help but think had I not always placed 1st Platoon in the lead, that more of Martin's platoon members would be alive today.

Next to Floyd Talbert, Sergeant Joe Toye was the best soldier in Easy Company. Among his numerous awards were four Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars. After several operations as a result of losing his leg at Bastogne, Joe was discharged from the army in February 1946. He always respected Bill Guarnere for risking his own life to save him
from being hit with more shrapnel. That was the way it was in Easy Company, said Toye, “One Screaming Eagle helping another Screaming Eagle.” Despite his physical handicap, Joe faced the responsibilities of raising a family with the same dedication he demonstrated in serving his country during the war. He worked for Bethlehem Steel for twenty years before retirement. Every man in the company would tell you that when the chips were down in combat, he would like to have Toye protecting his flank. Joe Toye died in 1995, and I was honored to be asked by the family to deliver the eulogy and to serve as a pallbearer. His tombstone said it all:
SERGEANT JOE TOYE
, 506
TH PIR
, 101
ST AIRBORNE DIVISION
. His time in service meant that much to him.

Gone too are “Popeye” Wynn, who apologized to me after being wounded during our attack on the artillery battery on D-Day, and T/Sergeant “Burt” Christenson, whose sketches of D-Day delighted Easy Company veterans for years. T/Sergeant Amos “Buck” Taylor, who replaced Carwood Lipton as platoon sergeant of 3d Platoon after Lipton was wounded at Carentan, remembered Popeye Wynn and Shifty Powers as two of the best infantrymen in Easy Company, always dependable to take the point when the platoon moved out. No history of Easy Company would be complete without the meticulous research of Burt Christenson, who maintained complete rosters of every man who served in the company over the course of the war. Ambrose relied extensively on Christenson to compile a list of casualties, addresses, and rosters in writing
Band of Brothers.
Christenson passed away in December 1999. Wynn followed three months later. Neither lived long enough to witness the accolades showered by an adoring public following the release of the HBO series.

No veteran who served in Easy Company had a more distinguished military career than Salve “Matt” Matheson, who stayed in the army and rose to the rank of major general. One of the original platoon leaders in Easy Company, Matheson was born in Seattle, Washington, on August 11, 1920. Graduating from the University of California at Los Angeles, he accepted a commission in the U.S. Army and joined Easy
Company at Toccoa. Colonel Strayer and Colonel Sink rapidly recognized Matt's talents and transferred him first to battalion and then to regimental staff, where he served from Normandy through Berchtesgaden. After the war, he served in various command and staff positions in the 82d Airborne Division and fought in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. During the Korean War, Matt participated in the Inchon and Wonson landings and the amphibious withdrawal from Hungnam. In Vietnam, he commanded 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Separate) and served on General William Westmoreland's staff during the Tet Offensive. Later he commanded the 2d Infantry Division in Korea along the Demilitarized Zone and Army Readiness Region IV before his retirement in the early 1970s. He always took immense pride in being appointed as the Honorary Colonel of the 506th Regiment. General Matheson passed away at his home in California on January 8, 2005, leaving me as the sole surviving officer from Easy Company's Toccoa days.

My life would certainly have been very different without Company E. I think I would have done a good job in any outfit, but Easy Company made me who I was. They brought out the best in me. If you had anything good in you, they brought it out. That is why as I look back over the six decades since the war, I find that as I meet, interact, and talk to literally thousands of people, I am always measuring them against and hoping to find men like those who served in Easy Company. They are truly my “other” family.

As I look back on the men of Easy Company and the closeness we have enjoyed over the years, I am reminded of the dialogue attributed to a senior German officer bidding farewell to his men in the HBO mini-series. Paraphrasing his words, I would say to Easy Company and the officers and men of the 506th PIR: “It has been a long war; it's been a hard war. You have fought bravely, proudly for your country. You are a special group of men connected by a bond that only exists in combat. You've shared the incommunicable experience of war and have been tested under extreme adversity. You've shared foxholes and held each
other in dire moments. You've seen death and have suffered together. You've lived in an environment totally incomprehensible to those who do not know war. I am proud and deeply honored to have served with every one of you. You all deserve long and happy lives in peace. I bid each of you godspeed and ask the Almighty to shower His blessings on you and your families now and for generations to come.”

One of the last things Steve Ambrose told me before his death in 2003 was, “From now on, Winters, if you are going to talk about anything, talk about leadership.” Leadership is an interesting concept and somewhat difficult to define. General George Patton once said, “Leadership is the thing that wins battles. I have it, but I'll be damned if I can define it.” Like Patton, I have been fascinated with leadership. It is something that you have within you that gets the job done.

Was I a successful leader? They tell me I was and modesty prevents me from disagreeing with them. I am not so naïve that I don't realize that the wide appeal of Dick Winters today is based on leadership in combat. I may not have been the best combat commander, but I always strove to be. My men depended on me to carefully analyze every tactical situation, to maximize the resources that I had at my disposal, to think under pressure, and then to lead them by personal example. I always felt that my position was where the critical decision had to be
made. Nor am I ashamed to admit that fear was a principal factor that contributed to my success as a leader. I was always afraid of letting my men down and I was always afraid of dying. It was a combination of these fears that drove me to learn everything I could about my profession so I could bring as many of my men home from war as possible.

Having said that, I am not sure there is such a thing as a natural-born leader. Some leaders are born with special aptitudes or talents, but any success I might have had was the product of good upbringing, intense study and preparation, and physical conditioning that set me apart from many of my peers. I was also surrounded by a group of men who were disciplined and highly trained to accomplish any mission. Add luck to the equation and you can understand that the secret to my success was that somehow I always managed to survive another day.

In recent years, I have been asked to address an increasing number of civic groups, corporate seminars, and governmental agencies on the subject of leadership. Most are looking for cookie-cutter solutions as to what constitutes a successful leader. What is the recipe for success? In truth there are no simple solutions, just as there is no average day in combat. Each situation is different and each requires a leader to be flexible in adapting his or her particular leadership style to the specific circumstances required to accomplish any mission. It's a matter of adjusting to the individual, and you do this every day. You don't have just one way of treating people. You adjust yourself to whom you are talking.

If I were to give advice to a young leader going to war, based on my observation of what had constituted the success of the outstanding leaders who comprised the American parachute infantry regiments of World War II, I would offer a series of principles that I am certain would result in great success, regardless of which field of endeavor the individual was participating.

First and foremost, a leader should strive to be an individual of flawless character, technical competence, and moral courage. In Anton
Myrer's bestselling novel
Once an Eagle
(which is on the required reading list of many senior military officers), the protagonist Sam Damon says, “You can't help where you were born and you may not have much to say about where you die, but you can and you should try to pass the days in between as a good man.” How do you become a good man? You start with a cornerstone—honesty—and from there you build character. If you have character, that means the guy you are dealing with can trust you. When you get into combat, and you get in a situation such as we were in along the dike in Holland, when I gave the orders, “Ready, aim, fire,” nobody else was thinking about anything except what he had been told to do. The men trust in you, have faith in you, and they obey, no questions asked. That's character in a nutshell.

Character provides a leader with a moral compass that focuses his efforts on the values we cherish: courage, honesty, selflessness, and respect for our fellow man. Character also allows you to make decisions quickly and correctly. Some may question my decision to disobey a direct order from my commanding officer at Haguenau and to “fake” another patrol as a violation of the very principle that I am advocating. In my heart, however, I could not send men to risk their lives for no apparent reason, when clearly nothing would have been gained that we had not already achieved. Such a course takes a degree of moral courage, which I have found is far rarer than physical courage. Was I correct? In my estimation, I thought so and I have never regretted my decision.

The same holds true for developing leaders of competency. Those entrusted to lead must study their profession to become totally proficient in tactics and technology. Prior to the invasion, I read every tactical manual I could lay my hands on to improve my tactical knowledge and professional competence while the other soldiers were out carousing in the pubs. While they were enjoying the social life of the neighboring towns, I was reading and educating myself, getting ready to lead the men in combat. While I was staying with the Barneses for the nine
months that they hosted me, I was studying, developing my own personality, my own personal perspective on command. The intense study paid huge dividends in Normandy. Before the final attack at Noville, I studied the
Infantry Manual for the Attack
. I must have read that manual hundreds of times, but if I could glean one additional insight with another reading, perhaps I might save one more life. The bottom line is that leaders have entrusted to them the most precious commodity this country possesses: the lives of America's sons and daughters. Consequently, they must have a thorough understanding of their profession.

Second, don't waste time attempting to define leadership. No need to go to the dictionary. The Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, has defined leadership in just two words via its motto: “Follow Me!” Never ask your team to do something you wouldn't do yourself. When I hit the ground outside Ste. Mere-Eglise armed only with a trench knife, there was no time to conduct a lengthy estimate of the situation or to find my leg bag. I grabbed the first trooper I could find, and said, “Follow me!” Off we went until other paratroopers joined us as we proceeded to our D-Day objective. At Brecourt Manor, Carentan, and at the crossroads on the dike in Holland on October 5, I made a quick, but thorough reconnaissance then developed a plan, and personally led the attack. You cannot make sound decisions unless you are at the point of attack Leaders should always position themselves where the critical decisions must be made. Precisely where that location should be is a judgment call, but in my experience leaders should be as far forward as possible. Successful leaders must be highly visible, if for no other reason than to share the hardships of their men. I am thinking of General George Patton, who made a habit of always visiting the front lines in his jeep or tank. When he returned to his field headquarters, he normally altered his mode of transportation to an airplane to avoid having his men see him moving back.

Physical fitness is another prerequisite for success. I freely admit that I was blessed with a sound physical constitution, but whenever possible, I took opportunity to improve my physical stamina. Because
I was in such good physical shape, I easily survived Toccoa. While men washed out on a daily basis, the contingent from Easy Company that completed the training and earned their wings at Fort Benning, were tough as nails. Not surprisingly, I felt that I was in the best physical shape in my life as Easy Company prepared for the invasion at Aldbourne. This did not happen by accident. Following a rigorous day of training, I would take a run every evening following tea with the Barneses. As they were on their way to bed, I would say, “Well, I'm going to take a walk.” I would go out and run for several miles even though blackout conditions were in effect. Then I'd come home and go to bed. Because I was in such good shape, my fatigue level never reached the point of physical exhaustion that contributes to mental exhaustion and, ultimately, to combat fatigue. We all experienced sleep deprivation at times—that is the nature of stress—but a physically exhausted leader routinely makes poor decisions in times of crisis.

A fourth key to Easy Company's success, as well as 2d Battalion's, centered on the development and the nourishment of teamwork. Captain Sobel began the process at Toccoa. He undoubtedly deserves much of the credit for developing such a cohesive team, but the teamwork didn't end there. The noncommissioned officers kept their squads and platoons physically hardened and combat ready. Until casualties removed so many Toccoa men from the ranks, Easy Company was just about the finest rifle company in the European Theater. Because each knew the other's strengths and weaknesses, we could assign the right men to the proper jobs. Burr Smith, who had been a soldier of one kind or another most of his adult life, knew only a handful of great soldiers. One was Bill Guarnere, platoon sergeant of 2d Platoon. The loss of Guarnere, Joe Toye, and Buck Compton absolutely devastated Easy Company at Bastogne, but others immediately stepped into the breach. In this case, 1st Sergeant Carwood Lipton ensured that the company did not disintegrate.

I have always felt that my principal contribution to the success of both Easy Company and 2d Battalion was based on my knowledge of
knowing what to expect from each man. It was hardly accidental that I selected Easy's “killers” for the assault on the battery at Brecourt. Nor was it coincidental that I positioned Floyd Talbert on my flank as we destroyed two enemy companies on the dike in Holland. At Haguenau, I knew that Sergeant Ken Mercier would get the job done. Having selected the right men for the right job, I then delegated the authority to my subordinates and allowed them to use their initiative to execute the mission. There is no need to tell someone how to do his job if you have properly trained your team. This is precisely why I respected Brigadier General Tony McAuliffe more than General Maxwell Taylor. Steve Ambrose thought I was unfair to Taylor, but I disagree. McAuliffe allowed us the flexibility and the latitude to do what needed to be done. The same holds true with respect to Colonels Sink and Strayer, who rarely interfered in small unit actions. The only time I can think that I purposely interfered with a mission was when I deliberately imposed safety limits on Harry Welsh for a combat patrol across the Rhine when 2d Battalion was holding the line in order to seal the Ruhr Pocket.

I have also discovered that careful preparation and anticipation of potential problems eliminate many of the obstacles that one encounters on the battlefield. Don't wait until you get to the top of the ridge and then make up your mind as to what course of action you intend to follow. The reconnaissance that I conducted at Brecourt on June 6 and on the dike on October 5 paid huge dividends when Easy Company swung into action. Before Sergeant Mercier led his combat patrol across the Moder River to capture some live prisoners, virtually every possible contingency had been thoroughly anticipated and planned. So, too, was the case of the attack on Foy, where I personally directed the fire support plan. The only thing that I had not anticipated was the mental breakdown of the company commander in the midst of the attack. Fortunately Lieutenant Speirs was on hand to take corrective action and direct the remainder of the assault. Good preparation is always vital to the success of any operation, but leaders must remain flexible once the action commences. Steve Ambrose likes to quote General Eisenhower,
who claimed, “Before the battle is joined, plans are everything. Once the battle is joined, however, the plans go out the window.”

I would also urge leaders to remain humble. If you don't worry about who gets the credit, you get a lot more done. I was only moderately successful in ensuring my men received the credit for their actions at Brecourt and on the Island. I recommended every man for a battlefield citation for the assault on the German battery on D-Day. Regrettably, many of the citations were downgraded by higher headquarters, but each trooper received some recognition. When I wrote the afteraction report for the defense of the Island, I purposely wrote it in the third person. Never once did I use the word
I,
nor was there any reason to do so. Leaders should assume blame when the operation fails; when it succeeds, credit the men and women in your team. They do the lion's share of the work.

Since the release of the HBO mini-series, many of us have been flooded with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of letters from adoring fans across the nation. A surprisingly high number have also originated from Europe, Canada, East Asia, and Australia. In a span of six months, I received one hundred and fifty letters from England alone. It is easy to get one's head “lost in the clouds.” The attention is certainly flattering and greatly appreciated, but it remains better to remember Eisenhower's address at Guildhall Hall on June 12, 1945. To an ecstatic British public, which showered the Supreme Commander with a tumultuous parade through the streets of London, Ike reminded them, “Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.”

Next, I would encourage leaders to take a moment of self-reflection before rushing into an important decision. Many leaders don't take the time to consider carefully their decisions or the implications of their actions. In battle I periodically detached myself mentally from the noises and chaos of battle. I found it useful to separate myself momentarily and to carefully think through what actions I needed to
take to accomplish the mission. The opportunity for self-analysis allows you to find your own self-consciousness, which in turn tells you if you are getting off track. Nobody will have to tell you that the course of action that you are contemplating is incorrect or ineffective. If you take advantage of opportunities for personal reflection, and if you honestly examine yourself, you will be a more effective leader. After the squad destroyed the German machine gun position on the dike on October 5, for example, I went off to be alone for a few minutes to think while the remainder of the platoon came forward. In the interim from when I summoned them forward and when they arrived, I determined that the proper course of action was to conduct a bayonet assault. At Bastogne, the ability to sit back and reflect on the next day's action ensured our battalion's success on the attacks on Foy and Noville.