Richard Davis Winters, former major in the 101:st Airborne, made famous, a regular hero, trough Stephen Ambrose book, though Stephen only told the truth, plain and clear. Dick is lying in bed, it has become increasing difficult to get his once so strong and powerful limbs to move under his will, he is struggling against Parkinson, and losing. Beside his bed is Ethel, his wife, she looks lovingly at him, his face so familiar so she can see it with any expression, in any age, and she doesn't even have to close her eyes. As it is, she guesses, when you have sheared a whole life together with someone you love. Still, she wonders if she will really understand him, the man in her life, her dreams and the receiver of all her love. They met after the war, and even though he has told her, time and time again, that life is what they built together, after the war, she cannot help to think, no, to know, that some part of him is inaccessible to her. And in the dark moments, she thinks that it might be that the best of him that is forever out of her reach, confined to that time and place of second world war, European theater of operations.
She reaches out to take the plate and spoon from his lap, put it on the tray together with her own, they have treated themselves with their favorite ice cream, in the middle of the afternoon, at that… He stirs from his light slumber as she moves, she bends over him, presses a light kiss to his forehead; "-I will go downstairs, start on dinner" she says. "If we are up to any, after this orgy" he smiles back to her. His image lingers for a moment for her inner eye as she starts down the stairs, his once blond, now white hair, blue eyes that never lost their piercing look even though now he needs his strong glasses all the time.
Back in the bedroom, Dick looks out, it is a beautiful early summer evening, the sunlight looks golden and he can hear some early cicadas trough the open window, even smell the honeysuckle that climbs outside on the wall. He thinks about the peace and quiet that he has found here, that which he promised himself when he was still young, and which he never grew tired of. He wonders if he would have been this fond of this place even if the war never had been, or at least, he wouldn't have been in it, but probably, he has always been one for stability, home and tranquility. He closed his eyes, allows himself to drift off to sleep, just rest a couple of minutes, before dinner.
All of a sudden he is walking down a gravel road, in another country, in another early summer night. Walking is not as easy as it used to be, but it is not as bad as it has been the last couple of months, he manages. He looks down at himself, and marvels, he is wearing his old battle fatigues; the jump boots, the pride of every paratrooper, with the jump knife stuck into the left shaft, the khaki trousers and jacket, with the screaming eagles patch on the left shoulder. He turns trough the gates into the Upottery airfield, and it is as alive with people, equipment, as it ever was the days before D-day, when they did their practice jumps from here, or, of course, that night, before the Day of Days.
He tries to focus on the face of anyone of all these servicemen that bustle around, giving of the sound of many nervous young men at the same place, but he doesn't seem to be able to focus his glance, or is it just that he doesn't recognize any of them? Is this D-day? But it cannot be, he wears his oak leafs, he didn't get them until 1945, in the spring, and by the way, if this was D-day, he would be young, strong and in the middle of organizing, not all alone like this… Speaking of which; where were his stick? And as if his feet had been waiting for him to ask that exact question, they turned and brought him to a C47 standing slightly to the side, the hatch was removed and he could see some movement inside.
Outside on the pavement was a pile of equipment, on the very top was a sign to hang around the neck of the jumpmaster, showing which stick he was responsible for. Dick was immoderate pleased to see that he was still jumpmaster, that the pile of equipment was for him was out of question in his mind. He started to slowly, painstakingly, strap all the stuff on, the 'chute, the reserve chute, the life west, the M1, the ammo bandolier and lastly the sign with the number of his stick. During the time he had geared up, he had, slightly worried, glanced at the hatch of the aircraft. Even young, at peak physical form, it had been tough to even move with all the gear, let alone get up and aboard that plane, how on earth would he ever make it now?
As he came closer, he seemed to catch a smell of something vastly familiar, but no, it cannot be … But it was, his old friend Lewis Nixon showed up in the doorway of the plane, smiling that familiar smile, and smoking his cigarette, the smell of which Dick recognized immediate, even 60 years after the last time he ever smelled it. Beside him, Harry Welsh turned up, and when the two of them reached down to grab his arms to help him onboard, his gear was suddenly feather light, as was he, and he easily got onboard.
As he entered that small, confined and half dark place a wave of shouts, laughter and greetings came against him, and as his eyes adjusted to the dark he recognized the people coming towards him. Bill Guarnere, his grin wicked as ever, Bull with his cigar butt at place at the corner of his mouth, Luz, Toye, Martin, all coming towards him to shake his hand, all smiling, teasing him for being late. Late for what, Dick wondered, and he marveled at the fact that all his men, like himself, wore full combat uniform and equipment though they all, like him, were old, battered and suffering from the wounds they got during the war, or the other alignments that they had come across during a whole life.
Nix came up, slapping Dick's shoulder, then he put his arm around Dick and steered him towards the empty seat just by the door, the seat of the jump master. Dick thankfully sank down, he let his eyes sweep along the aisle of the plane; there was Webster, jolting down notes in a little book, Moose Heyliger was at the far end of the plane and next to him: Speirs, looking distanced as usual. 'Usual'? What am I thinking? Dick asked himself, I haven't seen the man since the war, how can I know anything about his 'usual' expression?
"-Hey, Lieutenant" Bill called Harry "Who are we waiting for now?" Harry consulted a list which he took from the front pocket of his jump jacket. "-Well, it seems to be only Lipton left now" Harry answered. "-Ehh, have you all been…. waiting long…?" Dick asked, he was himself uncertain what he was asking. "-A day, a year, a decade, it is all the same here" Nix answered him, winking. "-Try three decades…" Dick could hear Webster mutter to himself. "Ohh, yeeh, that reminds me…" Nix started to pat his pockets, looking for something, "yes, here it is, this came along the other day, for you", he handed Dick a letter. Dick took it and when he turned it over to see the address he felt his world tilt a little bit further, it was DeEttas handwriting, he would recognize it anywhere. The letter was written on the same rough, grey paper as she used during the war, all those letters she had sent to him all over Europe. The letter she had sent him later, after she recognized him in the book by Stephen, and they took up contact again was of a whole other paper quality. Nevertheless… Dick smelled the envelope, yes, it smelled of the same perfume she had used her whole life, he unfolded the letter.
Dearest Dick, I hope this letter finds you well. How amazing this is really, that again, after all these years, I am writing a letter to my paratrooper, if you don't mind me calling you that. I know as little now, as I did then, as to what is waiting for you, or for me, but one thing I do know; you are in my heart, now and always. It was not in our destiny to spend our lives together, but no force on earth could stop my love for you, even though we were separated, by the Atlantic, by life, by love for our others, or by death. Love/Dee.
A while later, long or short, Dick couldn't tell, he heard someone approaching the plane, running. He craned his neck to look outside. It was Carson Lipton approaching, at a as close to double-quick as you can get when you are past eighty years old. As Lip geared up outside, Harry again brought forward his list and as Dick looked, he crossed the last name on the list. Carwood was perhaps the second most loved man in the entire company and he was greeted as such when he came onboard. When the men teased him for being out of breath, Dick asked him how come he was running. "-Well, as I was walking down that gravel road, all of a sudden, I told myself; 'Lip, old boy, you are late, can't keep the men' waiting, so I ran" This, Dick thought to himself, really summed up the main reasons why Carwood was such a good officer; his intuition, his caring for the boys and his physical stamina.
As the men had been talking the plane had begun to move, slowly approaching the end of the runway. Dick asked himself again what kind of strangely vivid dream this was. He catched Nixon's eye, he could not read any answers there, but as always, the fact that he was going into this with Nix on his side made him more comfortable. Really, he was going into this with the best men ever on his side, how could he possibly be worried? The plane speeded up, Dick could see the runway pass by faster and faster trough the open hatch, and then, they were airborne. Dick came to think of the very first time he was in an airplane, which was also, accidently, the first time he was about to jump out off one. It was the summer of 1942 at Taccoa, Georgia. Also that time had he been in the jump masters seat, he could still remember how proud he had been of winning the competition of which the prize was to be the first man out the door.
He looked over at Nixon again, he wore a slightly pained expression, no doubt he was remembering another jump all together, Operation Varsity. Dick tapped Nix on the knee, just to let him know he was there, possibly to take his mind of that particular memory. Often, Dick thought, both under the war and after, at the reunions, he and Nixon didn't need words to communicate, or maybe it was that they didn't need to communicate to understand each other. He had that feeling with several of the Easy company men, Harry being the first example, but with no one was it stronger than with Nix. They exchanged another glance and then Dick looked at the other men sitting facing each other in this loud and crowed space. They looked composed, some were trying t talk, but the noise from the engines made it difficult, some seemed to be lost in thought, or even sleeping.
The red light came on. 20 minutes to their drop zone, Dick looked out the door, they were above the clouds, which made it both cold and also impossible to see anything of the land below them. Everything seemed quite but, bearing two combat jumps in his past experience, Dick was not about to take any chances, better being prepared. He rose from his seat and showed his orders by hand signals "-Stand up! –Hook up! –Equipment check!" Funny, somehow, how these words, signals and the operations to carry out his orders was so fresh in his mind, though he had not thought about them since the end of the war, probably at that last training jump in Austria, when they still thought they would be redeployed to the Pacific. He smiled a little smile when remembering all those late nights when Nixon and himself had tried to convince Harry that he too should apply for transfer to 13:th A/B to get to the Pacific sooner rather than later. Of course, they could not succeed, he wanted home to Kitty.
Dick turned around, now facing the opening, he put his hands on the outside of the door, and glanced up towards the lamp, and when it turned to green, he was out the door. He fell through the milk-white cloud for a few seconds before he felt the jerk from the canopy developing, which, by the way, hurt a lot more then he remembered from before. He looked up and through the cloud fog he could just about make out the silhouette of the next man in the stick, which should be Nix. A few more moments passed when Dick just rested in the slowly oscillating movement of his parachute and then he broke though the cloud and he could see the land below him.
It looked like nothing he had seen before, but yet so vastly familiar. He was looking down at a peaceful country landscape, there were fields and a small village that looked somewhat like Aldbrough. The sun had come out and was illuminating the world below him, further the north there was mountains that reminded him of Austria and to the south there was the ocean, gleaming in the sun. He could not see any people around, but then, this was the time of the day when lucky and happy people were sitting on their front porch, discussing everyday life with their loved ones and looking out on the day as it settled.
He was now approaching the ground, and as always, it seemed to speed up to meet him. On routine, so well trained that it was like instinct, he did the right moves to make the landing as smooth as possible. The moment his feet touched the grass the strangest feeling came over him. He felt like light or music was flooding through him, making him shine. He just stayed on the ground, looking up the sky, while he tried to understand this new feeling.
Nix, just coming down for landing, made a curious observation, the sun shone on Dicks head, and made his silver white hair look blond again, same color as it once had. Nix fell from the sky just beside Dick and Dick could tell he experienced the same feeling of being flooded by sunlight, Nix sought his eyes and as they looked into each other's faces, understanding came. They were turning young again, young, strong and happy, and they were once again back in a place and time that formed their band of brothers, but this time there were peace and the cold, the mud and the senseless violence was gone, and instead they had a mix of all the things that were good in the ETO. It was theirs to enjoy, now and forever, they had won it, they had earned the peace with their blood and now they had taken the great big jump into heaven.