Band of Brothers

In July of 1944 the men were quickly and efficiently returned to Aldbourne. As the first soldiers to return from Normandy, the men were famous. They made the most of it by wildly celebrating in London. Others traveled or recuperated from wounds. Gordon was the only man in his hospital ward who was wounded in combat and was admired by the others who had been wounded in England. He was able to return to his company per Airborne policy, which was to return into their original units once they recovered (109). According to Ambrose, some men like Lipton, who choked Malarkey and another soldier after they called him “crip,” were “worried about permanent disability” (109).

The men were different after Normandy: they had lost half their number and had to confront “the reality [they] had faced and their apprehension about what they would be facing” (110). One Private Webster told his parents: “‘I am living on borrowed time. I do not think I shall live through the next death. If I don’t come back, try not to take it too hard. I wish I could persuade you to regard that as casually as we do over here…It’s not like civilian life, where sudden death is so unexpected’” (111).