Clergyman's

Strange thing, war.
- Donald Malarkey

Buck Compton looked nothing like the soldier who'd walked off the line a few days before. Well-starched Class A uniform. Hair combed. He was taking quick drags on a cigarette. His driver was waiting for him in a jeep. ""I've been reassigned, Malark,"" he said. ""Some desk job in Paris. Director of athletics and entertainment or something."" He'd wanted to stay with the company but Winters wouldn't allow it. ""That's great, Buck,"" I said. ""Dick said I could come say good-bye."" ""I'm glad you did. I'm happy for you."" He looked around. ""Don, there's something I need to know."" He paused and looked beyond me, back toward the woods where I'd just made fresh tracks in the snow. Back to where the others were. ""What, uh- what do the other guys think of me?"" I couldn't lie. ""They think you're a hell of an officer, Buck."" ""Really?"" ""Really. They wish you the best. Honest."" He nodded, his lips pursed a bit. ""Thanks, Malark."" He looked at me and saluted. I saluted back. And we left to go to the different places we needed to be.
- 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.
- Donald Malarkey

We are Americans- we lead and are looked to as leaders in the fight for liberty. We dare not shirk this responsibility.
- Donald Malarkey

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.
- Donald Malarkey

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.
- Donald Malarkey