Parachute Infantry , the wonderful memoir which provided the substrate for the TV series, Band of Brothers, is remarkable for what it says about the experience of a man who is just, honest and moral (and these three are not the same) and in what it does not tell you about that man.
It's author David Kenyon Webster is a web of contradictions: He is the child of privilege, who could have entered the Army as an officer--his parents could have assured that--but who chose to leave Harvard after his sophomore year to join the Army as an enlisted man.
He was a child of privilege who went to an Ivy League school, but he reacted to the men he met there with contempt and some disgust--they were cold, conniving men who had no sympathy for the suffering of the great mass of men, but cared only for themselves. He obviously was ready to leave Harvard early. And yet, when he got to the Army, he apparently talked about Harvard so much he looked like a snob to many of his fellow paratroopers. A young man who acted rashly and then thinks better of what he left behind? He was treated to indignities in the Army which must have made Harvard look pretty tame.
He wanted to see the war as a "grunt" but he was clearly frustrated he never rose above the rank of PFC. At the end of the war the only officer he seeks out is Captain Spears, who was one of the most relentless, merciless and respected officers in the 506th regiment. Webster makes a point of saying good-bye, saying Spears was the only officer who promoted Webster, if only as an acting sergeant, to a rank above PFC. "He was the only officer to ever give me a break." And yet, Webster says, more than once, he never volunteered for anything, hoped every day for the clean, million dollar wound which would get him out of the war, and when he got wounded, he took his time "gold bricking" and convalescing, so he missed the Battle of the Bulge, when his comrades were surrounded at Bastogne.
Webster describes moments of intense terror and almost paralyzing fear during his time in battle, but he always functions and never fails to act. During a raid depicted inaccurately in the TV show, showing Webster as part of the assault team, in fact Webster remained behind, across the river, but he was, in fact, just as much in danger, in an exposed position manning a machine gun to cover the escape of his brethren paratroopers. He does not brag about this--he simply says he couldn't have lived with himself if he had not remained at his station, firing tracer bullets which could be traced back to his position and could have got him killed.
He says he hated the Army but never realized how he had been a part of an enormous force for good in the world, until Easy Company stumbled upon the concentration camps they liberated.
He describes dispassionately how his fellow soldiers detested the French, thought the German (civilians) were the best people in Europe, even as the American soldiers threw them out of their homes to billet their companies. The German homes were spotless, comfortable and felt like home.
Webster could not warm up to the Germans, no matter what virtues they might have, knowing they were part of a group which sent people, women and children off to concentration camps.
He could not bring himself to evict children from their homes in Germany, even when an officer upbraids him saying, "They didn't take any pity on Jewish children or Polish children when they threw those kids out of their homes!" But Webster knows there is a problem with the "they" in that sentence. The German kids he was evicting, and possibly their parents, did not send Jewish kids off to concentration camps.
While his brothers in arms liked the Germans, Webster loved the Dutch, who, he said, were Germans without the viciousness.
Why would a man who could have avoided war, or got a cushy safe position have hated the war and sought to escape it at every opportunity? Presumably, he was quickly disillusioned, once he found himself in the ranks.
But if he became disillusioned why join the most gung ho outfit? Maybe he got disillusioned only after joining the paratroopers.
One thing he reiterates is how much as he hated theArmy, especially the officers. He describes being rousted out of his bed of hay in a barn, which he considered luxury accommodations by an officer who took him to a lovely house requisitioned for the officers, and Webster was ordered to swept out the floors and clean the place up for the officers, as if he were a chamber maid. He was not a maid, just a private, and he was treated like dirt.
And yet, when he leaves the Army, and even before he is discharged, when he is away, convalescing, he misses his friends and he respects the effectiveness of the regiment. He would fight with no other outfit and is happy to be part of the 506th. He transferred within companies of the regiment, because he disliked his assignment in his company, carrying ammunition and his company was always bringing up the rear, so he did not feel as if he were really in the fight but Easy company was always on the tip of the spear. So here is a man who talks about getting out of the war with a clean wound and wanting nothing more than getting out of the fight, but he pushes to be a rifleman in a position which will put him more in the fight. He also, in a letter to his mother, upbraids her for fearing for her younger son, David Kenyon's brother for wanting to join the paratroopers because it strikes her as being more risky. He tells her two things: 1. It's immoral to want other mothers to put their son at risk. 2. If you're going to fight, it's probably safer to fight with the best soldiers in the Army.
So, in the midst of his resentment of the Army, he still thinks his outfit is the best place to be, even if paratroopers are always surrounded. And despite his doubts about American propaganda and his awareness of the Gott Mit Uns mentality, which tells soldiers on both sides they are doing God's work, he does believe, as he says in his letters the Americans are right, the Germans wrong and detestable for enslaving other Europeans and America is the best country in the world and worth dying for. Coming from him, this is no empty phrase.
In the TV series, Webster's comrade, Cobb, is depicted as a malcontent, embittered and destructive to the sense of camaraderie necessary to the functioning of a primary group. Webster provides documentation that Cobb was not too different than many other members of Easy Company; Cobb was just drunk more often and he was a nasty drunk.
Band of Brothers is the flip side of the coin with The Wire. The Wire depicts a dystopia where no institutions function properly, where everyone is corrupt; although individuals may have their own merits, they always are stained by the scum in which they swim. In BOB, individuals may have their failings, but the overall efficiency of the organization is manifest, and individuals manage to save the failures of management through individual merit. In the end, the soldiers are fighting on faith, faith that their cause is right--the same faith the German soldiers who wore belts inscribed Gott Mitt Uns. But in the case of the American soldiers, their cause turned out to be even more right than they had imagined. Webster says they had heard about German concentration camps but they assumed this was all Allied propaganda. Only when they discovered the concentration camps did they appreciate the evil. Of course, Mr. Spielberg attempts to confer on the efforts of Easy Company a moral purpose which they did not have at the time they made those efforts, but Webster will have none of that sentimentalism. He is just glad he turned out to be on the right team. he makes no claims to have been any more moral, after the fact.
Webster loathes the viciousness of the Germans but he still hates the American Army.
It's a thorough going love/ hate relationship.
And for all its contradictions, it is somehow totally understandable. Anyone who has ever gone through college, anyone who has every had a relationship with an organization of human construction knows what Webster is talking about. There is so much to loathe, and yet, there is something about some organizations which makes you part of something bigger than yourself, something capable of more good, more potency to change the world than you could have ever achieved on your own, sitting by a pond thinking and writing.
It is the possibility of a functional institution, a community and the possibility the whole can be more than the sum of its parts. It is that possibility which can bring the hermit out from the woods and into the crowd.
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