Easy Company Soldier (8 page)

I stayed a week. In a sense, I'd said my good-byes the year before. I had just turned twenty-two, and for some reason, this was almost harder, like ripping open a scab that was nearly healed. I'd just gotten over Grandma Malarkey's statement from a few months back—“If anything happens to you, it'll be the end of me”—and didn't want to go through it again.

On the trip back, on a United Airlines flight, I thought about the pleasant fires we had in the cabin's fireplace that
burned the big alder logs. I had no idea how much I'd miss such simple comforts, let alone electric lights. In Chicago, because of a flight cancellation, I was delayed in returning to Fort Bragg. Even though I had written evidence of my delay, Sgt. William Evans threatened to court-martial me. It wouldn't be the last time.

In late August, the 506th boarded a train from North Carolina to New York, and on September 5, we set sail aboard the British ship
Samaria.
Five thousand men crammed onto an older passenger ship designed for less than half that. I stood on the upper deck as we churned out of New York Harbor and watched as we passed the Statue of Liberty. It was enough to put a lump in a guy's throat, wondering if you'd ever be back to see this country of yours again.

Back home, the hundreds of mothers with boys in Easy Company had been sent letters from Sobel that, for the first time, suggested the guy might actually have a heart.

He signed each letter, naturally not telling our families where we were headed. En route to England, all unit insignia was ordered removed from clothing to keep confidential
that we were paratroopers; the less the Germans knew of our whereabouts before the invasion, someone figured, the better. However, before docking, the order was reversed and we sewed the patches back on, apparently to increase the morale of the British. Europe, we were reminded, had already been at war for four years, and even something small, like a patch of a screaming eagle, could let the British know they were no longer fighting this war alone.

Along with tens of thousands of other soldiers from the United States and elsewhere who were arriving here in England, we were to help end it.

While in England, the 2nd Battalion, of which Easy Company was part, made a demonstration jump before Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, and other high mucketymucks. We assembled after the jump in front of the reviewing stand at Greenham Common Airbase, where General Maxwell Taylor invited dignitaries to inspect the ranks, and where, the day before D-day, “Ike” would make a more famous visit to the 502nd Regiment. For some reason, I was in the front rank rather than in the mortar squad's normal position toward the rear.

Ike and Churchill were going down the line, stopping and talking to about one person in each frontal squad. I have no idea how they chose each person, whether by count, by random, or by how impressively a soldier came to attention as
the two dignitaries passed by. But before I knew it, the supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, the man responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of France and Germany, was suddenly saluting me, Don Malarkey, an ROTC dropout.

“Where you from, soldier?” Eisenhower said.

“Astoria, Oregon,
sir.
”

For some reason, I wasn't as flustered by all this as you might imagine.

“And what were you doing before the war?”

“Going to school at the University of Oregon, sir.”

“So, who won that Oregon-Oregon State football game last year?”

I told him I wasn't sure, though the truth is nobody won because all the players were off playing soldier.

“And what are your plans after the war, soldier?”

“Uh, return to school, sir.”

“Well, good luck to you, young man,” Ike said, shaking my hand.

He then asked if Churchill had any questions for me.

“Yes, how do you like England?” he asked. Photographers were snapping pictures. This, I quickly reminded myself, was the prime minister of Great Britain.

“Very much, sir. I enjoy the literature and the history in particular.”

What I didn't tell him was that the dank, rainy, cloudy English weather made the northern Oregon coast feel like the Bahamas. That the food was horrible—all that mutton. That I once got a pancake so heavy and thick and undercooked that it weighed roughly as much as my mortar tube. At one point, two-thirds of our barracks had been hospitalized or confined to our beds because of sickness related to the food.

I liked the English countryside, and I wasn't lying when I said I liked the history and literature. I liked the people, in particular a bartender named Patrick McGrath. I marveled at the children, whose grammar, diction, and vocabulary was impressive. I liked the comfort of English trains and the expanse of Paddington Station. I liked lots of things about England, but the food and the weather balanced the scales.

Another thing I didn't like about England: the cheesy “photo op” we later got suckered into with the British general Bernard “Monty” Montgomery. The 2nd Battalion of the 506th had been secluded on a wooded British estate several hundred yards from his manor. At a prearranged signal, we were to run, arms upraised, toward the patio, where the general was in view. In the days that followed, newspapers depicted American paratroopers and glider men running toward Montgomery in adulation. In my book, it was bush-league stuff, plain and simple.

I enjoyed another “showcasing” much more. We were doing exercises on the south coast. Sgt. Bill Guarnere had me sight the mortar directly on a six-foot-square white target on a fore dune, about six hundred yards away. With Skip loading the mortars, I fired two rounds, one a little short, one a little long. Right after the second one hit, the “brass” arrived, a staff officer from division headquarters, accompanied by a general.

“Sergeant,” the staff officer said to Guarnere, “have the gunners fire at that white target as a demonstration for the general. No sighting first.”

Guarnere turned to us and half-winked. “Three rounds, men.”

I looked at Skip. He looked at me. We were both thinking
the same thing—that, unbeknownst to our observers, we'd just adjusted our fire on that very target. The first round hit dead center. The other two landed right on top of the first.

The general's eyebrows raised in either respect or disbelief. “Sergeant,” he said, “is your squad always this accurate?”

With his best South Philly cockiness, Guarnere took great pleasure in replying, “Sir, my squad never misses.
Never.
”

Skip Muck's smile that day was like a sideways banana. It would be one of my best memories of him. Soon after, I was called in to see Lt. Dick Winters.

“Private Malarkey, I'm splitting up you and Skip.”

“Sir?”

“You both are on a trajectory to being noncommissioned officers. Makes no sense, then, to keep you in the same platoon. Skip's going to the First, you'll stay in the Second.”

Though disappointed, the news didn't devastate me. Hell, I couldn't argue with the reasoning; much as I had little passion for leadership, it appeared I was headed in that direction, as was Skip. But I'm not sure Winters gave me the straight dope. Later, I heard he had other reasons for splitting us up. He told some that Muck and Malarkey were like brothers; if one gets killed or wounded, the other'll be worthless. And the invasion was fast approaching.

We were quartered in the village of Aldbourne, in south England, about a hundred miles west of London. We stayed in both wood and Quonset-type buildings with a potbelly stove in each and toilets outside. We called them honey pots. They stunk to high heaven. I don't know what was worse, that smell, the food, or Joe Toye missing a note on one of his late-night Irish songs. I fancied myself a fairly decent singer, so
noticed those missed notes. Let's just say Joe was a far better soldier than singer.

Our training reverted back to a Toccoa-type schedule with a heavy accent on running, calisthenics, and forced marches. At first, we were working six days a week, so weekend passes were out. But that would change. Meanwhile, we found ourselves, unlike back in the States, part of a larger community of people instead of out in the middle of nowhere. Occasionally, we'd visit one of the several pubs in Aldbourne. I became a crack dart player and seldom had to buy a beer. Beyond darts, I'd emerged as one of the best poker and dice players in Easy Company; I guess that was some sort of extension of my days in Astoria as a hot marbles player. Gram Malarkey sent me cigarettes and candy. Other than getting humiliated by Joe Toye in a friendly wrestling match—he batted me around like I was a popcorn ball—things were going well.

One day, Winters came to me. “Malarkey,” he said, “I want to make you a noncom, but you've got to show more initiative.”

“Like what?” I asked, wondering why he'd want to make me a noncommissioned officer,

“Throwing a few orders at your fellow privates, try to get them to be more dedicated.”

I told him I couldn't do that; it just wasn't my style. “I'll gladly serve you in combat,” I told him. But, no, I wasn't going to act like some kind of Boy Scout just to impress him. It wasn't a matter of me not “walking the talk,” because I'd never talked about wanting to be a leader. I didn't need fancy stripes on my sleeves, just a parachute and a rifle. I don't think my answer thrilled Winters, but I think he appreciated my honesty and knew I'd come around.

In England, the idea of war started becoming more real than it was back in the States. We started hearing the people's stories of the bombings in London; even in the rural areas, where people weren't huddling in subways, the British people were weary. Few young men were in the villages; most were off fighting the Germans or Japanese.

Our first opportunity for a weekend pass meant one thing to me: London. Everywhere you looked, you'd see soldiers from all different countries: Canada, South Africa, New Zealand. And with the British boys all off fighting, women galore. We stayed in the Regent Palace Hotel.

One Saturday afternoon, Joe Toye and I wandered into a place on Charing Cross Road called the Palace Pub. Joe was from Pennsylvania; I thought it was the perfect fit because the guy was like Pittsburgh-made steel. He'd gotten strong because of working in the coal mines. He didn't have a huge vocabulary, but had this wonderful Irish brogue—didn't hear that much in Oregon—and he came across like Superman, a guy who had all this strength but never let it go to his head.

But after a few beers that day, I saw another side of Joe Toye.

“My mother and father both grew up in Ireland, then came to America,” he told me that day. “When I was a kid, my father says to me, ‘Joey. You're Irish. You have two choices. You work in the coal mines or you be a cop. That's it.'”

“‘That's it'?” I said.

“‘That's it. You're too young to be a cop, so it's off to the mines.' I remember the priest coming to talk to him about me going back to school. He shooed him away. I was a coal miner. That was that.”

He paused. “I was fifteen, Malark.
Fifteen.
”

“Same age I was when I worked the salmon nets on the Columbia.”

“Only you still got to go to school. I had to quit. Football coaches were drooling over me but I couldn't play. I never learned to write. Never learned to talk good like you guys can with the big words and stuff. …” His words trailed off and he stared at his beer.

I didn't know what to say. But I remember thinking what a great guy Joe Toye was. We just went on drinking beer, then got onto other topics and finally started looking around the pub and noticing all the framed, autographed pictures on the high-ceilinged walls. After a couple of beers, I asked the barkeep the significance of the pictures.

He said he'd been the captain of a British soccer team that had toured the United States in 1929 and 1930—and had made lots of American friends because of it.

“Pat McGrath's the name,” he said, extending his hand.

“Must have been a helluva player,” I said, shaking his hand. “An Irishman captaining a British soccer team?”

Pat McGrath and I became close friends in the months before the invasion. I liked him a lot—and his pub, too. Twenty-foot-high ceilings. Autographed pictures on the walls of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. He talked of moving to America after the war; his cousin was Jimmy Walker, the mayor of New York, and he thought Mr. Walker might help get him established. When “afternoon closing” came—British law said pubs had to be closed between 3:00
P.M.
and 6:00
P.M.
—the patrons would leave, but Pat would keep me and my buddies on as his personal guests. One night, I finished off a beer and extended my hand to Pat McGrath. “Until we meet again, my friend,” I said.

Among the many painful ironies of war, I would soon
learn, is that though it's fought by soldiers, civilians get caught in the cross fire. Which is why that was the last time I would see Pat McGrath.

England became a double-edged sword for Easy Company. One edge was the privilege of weekend passes to London or wherever you wanted to roam in the countryside. Easy Company did nothing to disprove the reputation of paratroopers as first-class hell-raisers. We were all in our early twenties and had never had such freedom, such opportunities. For some, that meant god-awful hangovers, cases of the clap from the always available women of the night, and a month's wages lost on the poker table. I confess, I let some of my youthful energy carry me away on occasion; after a particularly lively pub experience, Rod Bain told me the next morning that I'd recited every line of Kipling's “Gunga Din”—while standing atop the bar. No wonder my jump boots smelled like stale beer.