As we sail through cyber- space, we have found multiple other sites titled, or in some way affiliated with, "band of brothers." All of us share a common bond, the brotherhood of men, the brotherhood of bearing arms, and brotherhood found in other forms or manifestations. On this page we will begin to link to these various sites as well as making available the discussion/message board forum to help connect us together.
Brotherhood....what is it?
The idea that friendship is not to be regarded as an individual affection alone, but instead as an ideal which should govern our interaction with all men in general, is the concept of the "brotherhood of man." Percy Jewett Burrell wrote of this concept:
Brotherhood! The brotherhood of men! What spiritual significance! Do we catch its true meaning? Does it give us a real and vital experience? Do we get a spiritual insight? Do we look out with a broader vision? Do we think in terms and live in acts of brotherhood? If we do, we move in harmony, attuned to both God, the Father, and man, the Brother. What is music without harmony? Verily it is not music. Life without good-will and fraternity - what is it? Indeed it is not life. He has not truly lived who has not lived for others, in sympathy and in harmony with his fellows.
If we are to "live in acts of brotherhood," we must first "think in terms of brotherhood." Before we can list the duties that we owe one another as brothers, we must first work toward a definition of brotherhood as an abstract concept, as an ideal. This requires us to distinguish between brotherhood and friendship, for although friendship is an essential element of brotherhood, we owe certain brotherly duties to one another that are not considered obligations between mere friends. (From The Sinfonian (Fall/Winter 1999/2000)
Sir Francis Drake: "...the enterprise upon which they were bound called for the same kind of unity that had belonged to Drake's 'band of brothers' in the old days off the Spanish Main."
Hyman Rickover: "While he was complaining to Congress about the way the US Navy interfered in the work of his small, dedicated band of brothers..."
Horatio Nelson, of his victory at the Nile: "Nelson summed up what had been the second essential of his success, 'I had the happiness to command a Band of Brothers.' "
"In the great cabin of Elephant there was now assembled something akin to the first band of brothers."
"As well as explaining his tactics, Nelson was also engaged in something just as important, the creation of a new band of brothers."
This week's featured site:
Scripture reading.. .Nehemiah 4: “ Remember the Lord who is awesome and great, and fight for your Brother.”
As we gather for reunion each and every year it is a very special, almost a sacred, time for us. This year is especially meaningful as we gather in this place where once we trained, near the City of Indianapolis, whose people treated us so wonderfully when we were young. It's a very special time for us. Its a very special place for us. It has very special memories
Just a few weeks ago I was weeding out old letters and documents when I came across, and read once again, an entry in a diary written during December 1944. The diary had been written, and kept, by a comrade and an old friend in my Infantry company. His name was Sergeant Roy Edgar. He hailed from the State of Missouri. This is an entry he wrote shortly after the Battle of the Bulge had begun and after he had heard a radio broadcast from London saying that the 106th had been destroyed:
“The BBC says we have been annihilated. We are not annihilated. We are still flying our colors, and we intend to hold on.. Believe you me !”
That’s a real entry in a real diary of a real friend. It was written at a time when there weren’t many of us left to fight.. .and even less to fight with. I share it with you because it says something strong and noble and courageous and determined about the Spirit of that man.. .and about the spirit of all.
It’s men like that sergeant that we come together to remember. There were thousands like him. Some survived the struggle and are here today. Others never came home. But that incredible spirit is one of the things we come together to remember.
What are the things we remember? Our memories are of two kinds.. simply put, “Places And Faces.” Your “Places” may be different from mine. Some of you remember the long cold, hungry marches, shivering together in crowded boxcars. The confinement, the brutality, the indignity of POW camps. No one can truly share such memories unless he was there.
On the other hand, others may remember as I do, the long, hard, cold, unrelenting struggle to take back what had been lost.. remember not just St. Vith, but places like Stavelot, Manhay, Houffalize, and others.. fighting from town to nameless town and house to shelled-out house.. killing and being killed. All these are the places you remember and the places I remember.
Your “Faces” may also be different from mine. In some instances our failing memories may forget names, but the faces of comrades are printed indelibly upon our minds. And those faces are the ones we come together today to remember and to honor.
You remember Dale Carver’s verse telling of “Us as we were then and as We are now:"
“Conceived
of this ordeal of fire and icy earth, this brother-hood of old men came to be.
A kinship stronger far than
that by birth was born, when we were young across the sea.
Of the ties that bind others
cannot know, but we were there, that winter long ago."
All this.. our “Places,” our “Faces,” our joys and our tears, our living and our dying have produced a kinship, a tie, a camaraderie to which we cling. It is, indeed, a kinship stronger far than that by birth. Nehemiah was right when we told his people: “
Every one of us would have risked his own destruction rather than let a comrade down. Each one would have risked his own neck for every brother who wore our Lion.
Camaraderie was what provided the strength and determination to hang in there.. to take all that the enemy could dish out.. to go forward under fire.. or to risk one’s neck, if a buddy was in trouble. Camaraderie!
One historian wrote
in late December 1944:
“Those still able
to fight shook themselves and made this a defining moment in their lives. They
didn’t like retreating. They didn’t like getting kicked around. They
didn’t like seeing their comrades captured. They didn’t like hearing about
massacres. They decided they were going to make the enemy pay.” And pay he
did”
Author Steven Ambrose
wrote:
“The “Bulge”
put our front-line troops (still able to fight) into one of the most God-Awful
offensives of this or any war. The battle that raged through January was, for
the G.I.’s one of the worst of the war...even more miserable than Hurtgen or
Metz. It was just a straight ahead attack designed to eliminate The Bulge
and return to the German Border. It was fought in conditions so terrible that
they can only be marveled at, not really imagined. Only those who were there
can know.”
What General Colin
Powell once wrote about American G.I.’s has always been true:
“American soldiers
love to win. They respect a leader who holds them to a high standard and pushes
them to the limit, as long as they can see a worthwhile objective. American
soldiers will gripe constantly about being driven to High Performance. They
will swear they’d rather serve somewhere easier. But, at the end of the day
they always ask: ”HOW’D WE DO?"
How did we do?
British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery very rarely had anything good to say
about American soldiers, but he said this about the 106th:
“They didn’t have
much to fight with. They didn’t have experience. They didn’t have a chance
in HELL! But TIME was needed. The American soldiers of the 106th
infantry division stuck it out. Put in a fine performance and gave us time. By
Jove, they stuck it out, those chaps.
How’d we do? History has spoken. They called us “Brave Rifles!”
Well.. these are all the things we remember.. Battles lost and Victories won... Places and Faces.. .and above all we remember the camaraderie that bound us together.
On January 21, 1945, General Herbert T. Perrin, then commanding our division, wrote a two-page communication addressed to all the officers of the 106th. Its contents were to be shared with all members of the division. I have a copy of it at home, still. In it he commended officers and men alike for their performance. He included praises received from the Secretary of War, from Eisenhower, from Hodges, from Ridgeway. But it was General Perrin’s own statement of pride that meant the most to me.
It read this way:
“I am proud of this
division and the personnel who compose it. In my service I have belonged to
many organizations in which I have been proud to claim membership because of
their prior deeds of valor and success. My Greatest Pride is that I can
wear the Lion on my shoulder for all the world to know that I am a
Brother-in-Arms of the men of the 106th Infantry Division."
Brothers-in-arms.. .the things we remember.. .the untellable things of those days that we share.. These explain the “Ties that Bind.” These explain the compulsion to come together like this every year. Remember Dale Carver’s “Song for the Infantry?”
“We’re the minutemen of Concord; we set our country free. We are founders of a Nation , the mighty Infantry. We served Grant at Vicksburg; for Lee we wept and died. In Blue and Gray formation we fought and marched with pride.”
During that same civil war there was a song.. .a little ditty that was sung by Soldiers both Blue and Gray. It tells of the tie that binds. I do not know its tune; I only know its words. They are simple words that convey a simple thought. Perhaps the camaraderie of which they speak can only be described in terms as simple as these.
Listen:
“There are bonds of
all sorts in this world of ours,
Fetters of friendship
and ties of flowers;
A boy and a girl are
bound with a kiss,
But there’s never a
bond, old friend, like this...
WE HAVE DRUNK FROM
THE SAME CANTEEN.
“It was
sometimes water and sometimes milk,
sometimes Applejack,
smooth as silk.
We shared it together
amid cold and shell,
And I think of you,
friend, when I remember so well...
WE HAVE DRUNK FROM
THE SAME CANTEEN.
All the faces we
remember.. .all the unforgettable friends God gave us.. .all the Comrades we
memorialize.. .we laughed together.. .we cried together.. .we fought together..
.we prayed together.. .we loved together.
We were brothers. We
drank from the same canteen.
Most of us know the story of the it was fought in 1415 in Normandy between the English and the French. The English, though greatly outnumbered, won the battle that day. You may remember the words of encouragement that Shakespeare had the King speak to his soldiers before the battle began.
But do you recall the words that same King spoke to his battle-weary veterans who had managed to survive the battle they had won that day ? With tears in his eyes he thanked those outnumbered survivors who had fought so valiantly and suffered so much.
These are the words that Shakespeare gave the King in Henry V.
I leave you these
words because these define the ties that bind. Remember these words
every time we come together.. .apply these words to everyone who wore our
Lion... Think of these words as the 16th of each December passes:
“”This
story shall the good man tell his son, and this day shall ne’er go by, from
now to the ending of the age. But we in it shall be remembered... We few.. .
We very few.. .We Band of Brothers. For he who shed his blood with me today
shall be my brother.”
I came across these
following words which are not my own, and haven’t been able to rediscover
their author, but I share them with you...
A half a century has
passed. A century will also pass in the blink of an eye. Who will sort out
truth from falsehood ? God will know you! (Those are the very words
that appear on the monument at Louvremont, aren’t they?)
We look at ourselves in our mirrors each morning and say to ourselves: One day in our youth long ago, the boasting time ended. And everything you boasted about, everything you believed about yourself was put to the test.. your honor.. your Love.. your fidelity.. your faith.. your courage...
It was all put to the test! How did you fare in that test long ago?
You will realize, if you have not already made that great discovery, that all those traits and truths were proven.
We made choices that only good men could make.. that only the brave and loyal could make.. choices that only those who loved one another could make.. choices that could have been dictated by courage and faith alone.
We lived out truth.. even to the death. And truth survived even when some of us did not. And freedom survived. And decency. And your children. And my children... And America.
How did you fare in
that test ? Look in your mirror tomorrow morning and think of those words of
Shakespeare.
They were written for you
“This story shall
the good man tell his son and this day shall ne’er go by, from now to the
ending of the age, but we, in it, shall be remembered...” God
will know us and so will the history of this great country ....
.. We Few... We Very Few .... We Band of Brothers !
Dr. Duncan Trueman,
Chaplain
106th Infantry Division
Association
52nd Annual Reunion
Memorial Service
Camp Atterbury, Indiana
12 September, 1998