Disclaimer: Hi, I don't own any of the franchise of Band of Brothers. I have the utmost respect for the men of Easy Company and all those that have served. I mean no disrespect to those men. This story is for entertainment purposes only and is based only off the portrayal of the actors from the miniseries. Only Anna Cohen and any other original characters that may crop up in this story are mine.

Till the End of the Line

Chapter 3: First of Their Kind

Camp Toccoa, Georgia June 1942

We had been training for months on end, I didn't realise how much they were going to continuously drill into us. Some days had been more repetitive than others for me, being part of a general surgery ward meant I had experience in several different areas, compared to Marie who had been a midwife up until a year ago and still had much to learn. I mean treating wounds that were caused by explosions wasn't something you always came up against, but gunshot wounds had been normal to some nurses who had worked in the ER department of their respective hospitals. Matron had upped her 'physical training' from just marching to jogging around and even sprinting on occasion. In her words: 'In the field equipment won't be readily available, saving your patients life may depend on you running to the next station to acquire your tools.'

"What utter bullshit." Val shouted as she entered the barracks a piece of paper scrunched up in her right hand. I looked over at Marie who looked as confused as I felt.

"What's wrong?" I asked as she threw herself down onto her bunk, she flung the piece of paper my way, but it just sort of floated down to the floor increasing her frustration.

"This." She hissed as she kicked the piece of paper on the floor, I leaned down and picked it up and flattened it out so it was actually readable. Marie joined us kneeling behind me on my bunk so she could read the note over my shoulder. It read:

Dearest Valerie,

You are breaking your mother's heart as well as mine, you are our only child and we cannot understand why you would do such a thing. While you may think this is an exciting opportunity, it is not. It is selfish and hurtful. We raised you better than this, how can a woman go to war? Your rightful place is at home, with a husband raising our grandchildren. You are depriving us of grandchildren with your selfish reasons to remain unmarried. I supported your dreams of becoming a nurse, thinking it would give you a chance to meet a wealthy surgeon to marry. But I cannot support this; if you come home you are not welcome in our household any longer.

Farewell

Father

"What the hell?" Marie said in utter disbelief, I couldn't even think of something so awful. How could a parent say any of this to their child? Especially their only child.

"How could they say such awful things?" I murmured re-reading the letter just to make sure I had actually read it right and they had said all those awful things. I looked over at Val who was now face down on her bunk, her face buried in her pillow, every now and then I could hear sniffling.

"Do you know what, fuck them." Marie angrily said as she got off of my bed and sat down next to Val rubbing her back in a soothing fashion. "If they don't want you, there are people here that want you…no need you Val."

"Yeah." I started I was still quite in shock from what I'd just read, I couldn't understand how they could be so unsupportive. Fair enough there were people that didn't support the war because they didn't support violence, but Val was a nurse someone who was going to save lives out there, I couldn't think of a better cause to support. "We need you; gosh if you weren't here I'd be at my wits end."

"And I'd have to deal with this one by myself." Marie added to which I playfully hit her in the arm.

"Hey!"

"What? You're so much effort." Marie explained laughing slightly as I frowned at her.

"Am not."

"I appreciate what you're trying to do guys; I really do, but…"

"But nothing, you're one of us and we look after our own." Marie interrupted Val at this stage had turned over to face us both, her eyes were beginning to look puffy and red from crying and her cheeks were tear stained.

"What about after the war? I can't go home to them." She mumbled new tears falling from her eyes, she did have a point they'd told her not to come home, if she made it home, were their words.

"I told you, the two of you can be my spinsters and live with me and Johnny." Marie said in a matter of fact way, but who was she kidding, that was a joke between friends there was no way we'd ever just be live in spinsters with Marie and Johnny and any little kids they were going to have.

"Marie, be serious." Val groaned returning to crying into her pillow.

"You can come home with me." I said and I was serious, I mean it meant another mouth to feed, another bed to find. But I know that both mum and dad would be fine with it, they'd take her in like she was a member of the family. Mum had always said that when others are in need, it is our responsibility to make sure they get through it with all the help they need.

"What?" she asked in disbelief as she looked up at me.

"You heard you can come home with me."

"I can't do that Anna, I can't be a burden on you and your family." She mumbled I shook my head she wasn't going to be a burden.

"Honey, you ain't a burden hell my mum would probably say you're a godsend with your cleaning abilities." I said laughing slightly which made her smile a bit.

"Of course you know you won't be celebrating Christmas, you'll be celebrating Hanukkah." Marie added earning her a jab in the side. "Ow!"

"There ain't anything wrong with celebrating Hanukkah, besides its eight days of celebrating instead of one." I said grinning widely at Marie shaking her head; however it definitely cheered Val up.

"You really think they'll be ok with it, I mean your parents?" Val asked timidly she'd finally sat up and was wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her shirt, until Marie reached into one pocket and fished out a tissue.

"I'm sure they will be, I'll write them and explain the whole situation." I replied if I wrote to them and explained everything about Val's situation I'm sure they'd understand.

"Thank you so much. I don't know what I'd do without you guys." Val said pulling both me and Marie into a big hug. If we didn't support each other there was no point of us being here, there'd be no teamwork and we'd fail as a company of nurses. And if we failed it meant lives would be lost and that was not an option.

"Ladies, with me Colonel Sink wants a word." Matron had come into the barracks in a flurry, making the three of us jump apart and quickly stand up. She had reached our bunks and motioned for us to follow her before turning back round to go back out as quickly as she had appeared. The three of us quickly trailed behind her.

"Ma'am, permission to speak." Marie asked as we rounded to corner of one of the barracks heading straight towards the head office.

"Granted, what is it Nurse Dolen?" Matron answered, while it was never hospital protocol to address people in such a manner, this was the army and Matron had made sure we followed the same procedures the soldiers did.

"What does Colonel Sink want with the three of us?" Marie asked Colonel Sink was a part of the central command here at Toccoa, specifically he oversaw the Paratroopers. So exactly what he wanted with a company of nurses was beyond me, unless he'd also taken command of the medical corps.

"I'm not sure, Doctor Green is also joining us, so we shall all find out exactly what this is about together." Matron replied it was unusual for her not to know exactly what was going on, but I guess this meeting was something rather important that was only to be discussed together. We entered the Colonel's office where he and Doctor Green were waiting, Doctor Green was the assigned surgeon to our barracks and while most other surgeons I had worked with before had been rather over confident and snobby, he was much more laid back and appreciated all the help. That being said he could be right mardy when he wanted to be, but so can everyone when things aren't going their way.

"Ladies, good afternoon, I hope your time at Toccoa has been good." Colonel Sink greeted shaking each of our hands, this sort of sounded as if we were being let go with the way he had phrased his greeting. As if he was now going to go through a list of all our individual inadequacies and exactly why we wouldn't be fit to be a part of the medical corps. "Now this may come as quite a surprise to everyone here, but the Airborne are a completely new concept so I think we need to rethink our medical aid for them."

"Sir, there are fully trained medics that have been with them throughout their jump training, they will always have continuous aid." Doctor Green interjected, well now it wasn't sounding like we were going to be let go but more like we were getting put into a different regiment entirely.

"Yes, Doctor every squadron of the Airborne has assigned medics with them, but there are no surgical teams similar to those for the Army. A medic can only do so much; think of how many lives could be saved if we also had a surgical unit with them." Sink continued I mean he did have a point, while the medics that had been training with us as well as with the paratroopers were amazing; they were going to be severely underequipped and swamped with the amount of work out in the field.

"Sir, does that mean…"

"Yes Doctor, all of you will be fully trained to jump out of an aircraft alongside the Airborne." Sink announced I couldn't quite believe it, was Sink actually serious? We'd be trained to jump out of aircraft side by side with the Airborne.

"Holy mother!" Val exclaimed before Matron glared her down.

"Sorry sir, please excuse Nurse Kent's outburst." She apologised still keeping up her glare towards Val.

"No need for sorry, I know this is a lot to take in. None of you signed up to do this, and you are all obliged to say no to my request, just know that if you do accept not only will you be doing so with great courage you'll be given a bonus." He explained it really was a lot to take in; I'd signed up to become a nurse in the army, to be sent out to a front and care for the wounded. I'd expected to go into danger just I didn't quite expect to be jumping into the fray and behind enemy lines no less.

"If you don't mind Colonel, I would like to discuss this with my nurses for a moment." Matron asked as she ushered us up out of our seats.

"Perfectly fine, Matron." Sink replied as she ushered us out of the room and into the corridor.

"Ladies, I know this is asking a lot." She began only to be immediately cut off by Val.

"You don't say."

"Mouth Nurse Kent." She warned once more, Val looked away before apologising. I could understand her emotion at this news, it was a completely new concept that they were employing, and not field tested to the extent that they knew it was a hundred percent effective. For all we know we could be training to immediately throw away our lives.

"Sorry Matron."

"I will be perfectly fine if you decline this offer." She began and in that moment I couldn't quite help myself.

"I'm accepting." I blurted out everyone looked rather shocked at what I had just said, but continuously thinking about the men that would be doing this as well as us, thinking about them not getting the best medical aid they could potentially get. And hearing Sink's words of the lives we could save if this was successful sealed it for me. I hadn't signed up for this, but I'd signed up to save lives and if this was what I had to do, then so be it.

"Nurse Cohen, you understand how risky this is?" Matron asked the risks kept going through my mind but it still wasn't changing my mind. I'd made my decision to sign up no matter the cost, to save as many as I could.

"Yes, I understand. But we won't be alone taking this risk; the men are all in the same situation." I reasoned granted the men had signed up to fight in the war, whereas we weren't going to fight.

"They signed up for this." Val argued clearly against doing this.

"We also signed up for this."

"We didn't sign up for this, we signed up to be nurses." She explained and while that was true we wouldn't be trained to be soldiers by accepting this, we'd just be trained to jump with the paratroopers to make sure they got the best medical aid.

"And we will be nurses doing this."

"But you do realise that they all carry weapons don't you?" she asked getting rather irate with every question she kept asking.

"The medics don't, Eugene Roe is unarmed and that's the point isn't it, we aren't here to be trained to fight, we're here to make sure those men make it back here." I explained and some of the medics hadn't come from the greatest medical backgrounds which meant the more help they got the better. "And if this is the way we can make sure they get back home then I am damn sure going to do this."

"Damn, if you're going to do this, then I'll be by your side. But by God is this insane." Val sighed after taking a moment to assess what I had just told her.

"Nurse Dolen?" Matron asked and now all attention was turned to Marie who had yet to say a thing about this situation.

"If these two are going to risk their lives, I may as well join them to make sure they don't end up killing one another before the war is over." She replied giggling slightly although she immediately stopped when she saw the rather serious expression on Matron's face.

"Then it is settled the four of us will do this training." Matron announced which meant this decision was now pretty much final, we'd become the first nurses to be trained to jump behind enemy lines. "But Ladies bear in mind there will be many that tell us we cannot do this, even if the Colonel has asked us to do this. They will think, like they always do, that we can't handle this, but we will show them, like we always do, that we are more than capable of doing this."

"Have you made a decision?" Colonel Sink asked as we returned to the room, Doctor Green had stopped pacing up and down the left side of the room as we entered, cigarette in one hand and the other nervously raking through his short brown hair.

"Yes Colonel, we will all undertake this training." Matron answered, Sink smiled at the response however Doctor Green wasn't so happy about the response.

"Matron you can't be serious?" He asked utterly flabbergasted at the situation, most likely in the mind-set that women would not be able to handle this.

"We all came to our own decisions Doctor." Matron asserted before Colonel Sink then weighed in on the situation.

"If it makes you feel at ease Doctor, if you fail the jump training you will all be back to normal duty."

"I'm not worried about the training; I'm worried about the fact you are asking us to jump behind enemy lines unarmed ready to be picked off." He reasoned, maybe I had been too quick to think the Doctor was simply attesting our decision to go through with this training because we were women, when in actual fact he was concerned not only about his welfare but ours as well.

"I hear you Doctor, but with all due respect you aren't going in alone, the 605th will be right there with you. The best of our soldiers making sure you get there in one piece and you make sure they get back in one piece." Sink explained and that was a thought that was reassuring, we'd be with the best of the best that the army had.

"Well who are we being assigned to?"

"Easy Company, you'll all be trained by Captain Sobel, who I am confident will make sure you become the best." Sink replied clearly chuffed that we had all agreed to his proposal and just as he finished replying to Doctor Green there was a knock on the door. "Ah speaking of…Enter."

"Colonel." Lieutenant Sobel saluted Sink as he entered the room.

"At ease Lieutenant, now ladies Doctor Green, this is Lieutenant Sobel; he will be overseeing your training." Sink explained to the Sobel as he took in the room, upon hearing the word training he looked rather confused. Maybe he was one of the men that would believe we couldn't do this, and that we shouldn't be going off to war as nurses let alone jump out of a plane as w

"Training?"

"Yes, Lieutenant. I've deemed you the most capable at training up our first field medical unit, after all Easy Company is the finest company in the 506." Sink explained which made Sobel look as though the Colonel had just grown a third head. After everything the boys had said about him, he didn't seem to be the type that could be vindictive just to assert his commanding position. Then again you can never judge a book by its cover.

"Sir." I think he was about to start questioning but thought better of it, seeing as this was the Colonel's idea and that he was much higher up the chain of command.

"Now I won't take more of your time, better spent training." Sink said smiling; I'm sure he'd be pretty damn proud of himself when his little experiment would succeed.

"Yes Colonel."

"Are you all sure about this?" Doctor Green asked the four of us as we exited the room ahead of Lieutenant Sobel. He was clearly concerned for the safety of us all.

"Yes."

"Don't worry about us Doc; we're all tougher than we look. Right Matron?" Val added turning towards Matron.

"There's not another group of nurses I would trust to go ahead with this." Matron responded and her words made me feel six feet taller, there were no other nurses she'd trust with this than us.

"You're training with us as well Doctor; we'll all look out for each other and the men." Marie added smiling at him before our little happy gang was interrupted by Lieutenant Sobel.

"That's if you all make it through the training, which I highly doubt it." He interjected we all stared at him in disbelief, it was his job to make sure we were trained to the highest standard, Colonel Sink had said so himself.

"Pardon?" Matron asked but I had a feeling I knew where this conversation was about to go.

"With all due respect, there is no room for women in Easy." He replied and of course he was going to pull the 'women can't do what men can' card. Joe, Talbert and Skinny were all right in their assessment of this man, he was an absolute asshole.

"With all due respect, you're making room for them." Matron fired back, he seemed slightly taken aback that she was talking back at him, but it didn't faze him enough to totally retreat.

"There's no place for women in this war."

"If you hadn't already realised there has and always will be a place for the Army Nurse Corps, my girls and I are here to aid those in need." Matron continued and if Sobel had looked taken aback before, he now looked totally flabbergasted that Matron would stand her ground against him. "And if you don't think you'll need a nurse when you're screaming in agony from torn limbs or bullet wounds, then you're delusional."

"Matron." Marie, Val and I collectively gasped, she had near enough crossed a line and I'm sure if he didn't like us before he wasn't going to like us now.

"I'm sorry for Matron's brash words; she just wants to put across that with our collective help we'd be saving a lot more lives." Doctor Green interjected stepping between us and Sobel. "Like the Colonel said, the Paratroopers are a completely new concept and needs a new way of medical care."

"Still, women will not be physically capable of enduring this training so you all may want to quit while you're ahead." Sobel was insistent that we were not going to be able to complete this training, even though he had no clue how physically or mentally fit any one of us was. He simply didn't want women in his Company and he was going to make damn sure we failed.

"There is no chance in us quitting." I stated before Val backed me up.

"And there is no chance that we're failing."

"0600 sharp, in front of Easy's barracks." And with that Sobel marched out of the building, this was starting to look like an uphill battle already. He wasn't going to make this training any easier, in fact he was going to make it as hard as possible just to try and fail us. After all he'd already told us there was no room in Easy Company for women. Matron dismissed us after telling us to make sure there was nothing Sobel could be picky about when it came to tomorrow, that meant making sure our uniforms were in spotless condition and all are equipment was correct and packed correctly.

"Can you believe we actually agreed to this?" Marie exclaimed as I flopped down onto my bed with her taking the edge corner facing Val's bed, Val sat down in the centre of here bed after taking off her boots.

"We only agreed because Annie here is out of her mind and actually wants to jump out of an airplane." Val stated as she hit me lightly on the arm.

"Hey, you didn't have to agree to this." I grumbled they didn't have to agree to do this, they could have simply declined.

"We weren't going to let you do this alone." Marie added with a large beaming smile on her face.

"Even if I do think it's utterly bonkers." Val interjected and she too had a smile on her face.

"Plus we did kind of sign up to aid these men, and if doing this is going to help them more, then it's for the best." Marie continued she was right, if this was what we had to do to help the guys in the best way possible then we were sure going to make sure we did our best. Even if Sobel did not want us in his Company, even if the men of Easy Company didn't want us there, we'd make sure they all got home.

"Hey isn't Easy Company the Company that Joe is in?" Val asked and immediately I knew what was going to happen especially with the cheeky grin that was now plastered on her face.

"Oh yeah it is, isn't it?" Marie replied she too wore a cheeky grin now.

"If you're about to insinuate what I think you are, you can stop right now." I groaned they'd restart their nonsensical conversation they'd had after we'd all come back from the pub where they'd met Joe for the first time.

"Oh Annie I don't know what you mean." Val said acting all innocent as if she didn't know what I was on about.

"All we were thinking is all the time you'll get to spend with him." Marie stated as she and Val began to giggle like two school girls who'd just been waved at by their high school crush.

"I think you're forgetting about the war and our duty in it."

"Still you can always find some time for romance." Val said I leant over and swatted her leg, I had told her on multiple occasions that there was nothing between me and Joe. We were friends nothing more and we would still be friends through and after this war.

"Oh fuck off; we are not starting this again."

"Oh come on Annie we were just joking." Marie said I knew they were both joking but right now I wasn't in the mood for this to carry on like it had last time.

"But he still could be you're Jewish Cary Grant." Val added giggling once more.

"Val." I put on the meanest glare I could muster and looked towards her.

"Alright, alright jeez if looks could kill I'd be six foot under already."

"They were right though." Marie stated as she got up off of my bed and removed her boots, placing them at the end of her bed.

"What?" Val and I both asked, not entirely sure what she had meant by it nor who she was talking about.

"About Sobel, he's an asshole." She replied and now it made a lot much more sense. She was talking about Joe, Skinny and Talbert who had said that Sobel was such an asshole who liked to punish the troops for simple things. Speaking of which, we hadn't seen them for a while at the weekends in the pub, most likely because their weekend passes kept being revoked.

"Yeah that is something we can agree on."

"Better get an early night, don't want to be late and give him an excuse to stop us completing this training." I said as I finally got up off the bed to actually get ready to go to sleep and prepare for the first day of hell. I knew training for the military would be a lot tougher than training to be a Staff Nurse, but I knew for a fact that Sobel would make our training so much worse than it should be. He'd nit-pick every little detail just so he could single us out and potentially fail us, if not he'd try his hardest to make it so hard on us that we'd want to drop out rather than carry on training.

I don't think I got much sleep that night, when I closed my eyes and tried to drift off my brain switched on and began running through every thought I had. What would everyone back home think about this? Mother would surely be at a loss, she didn't want me to sign up for the Nurse Corps she definitely wouldn't support this training. Dad on the other hand would probably be proud that I was doing this, maybe he'd be more worried now than he was when I originally signed up. George would probably think I was absolutely nuts, but a little bit of him would be enormously proud of me…well I'd hope so anyway. And then I wondered what Joe would think of this, sure he'd been happy to see me that evening in the pub and he'd seemed happy back at dinner when George had first told our parents that he was enlisting. I then thought of what I'd actually agreed to, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane behind enemy lines. Yeah it sounded insane.

Author's Notes:

Hi guys, I hope you have liked the story so far and have enjoyed this chapter. I'm actually having so much fun writing this, and have so many different ideas on what I could do. Any suggestions/reviews are much appreciated as it is always helpful when writing the next chapter. Thank you to all those who have reviewed, favourited and followed the story it makes me want to continue writing the best story I can.