Chapter one
It was 1944 June I was part of fox company of the 101 airborne division we where there on the run way and I thought back that barely 2 years back I was a small town kid from Pensilvania I joined the army just after peril harbor I was 18 in training I met some of by best friends jack he’s from New Orleans and Mike he’s from Montana then you have the Sargent his name is jay he’s from Chicago last but not least the lieutenant he’s from Wyoming I was on the runway dawning my Thomson machine gun I turned to jack he was cleaning his grease gun he said
you ready for the jump
I nodded and said
be safe
then I turned to him and asked
you got a smoke
he said
ya
I asked
could I have one
he said
ya
and asked
do ya need a light
I replied
no I got one
he said
ok see ya on the plane
I nodded and walked off to see Mike he was packing ammo for his M1 he looked at me and said
nice hair cut
all of us had Mohawk I said
not to bad yourself ya blunt headed Son of a bitch
he looked at me and said
you better have a death warrant
I replied
no
he laughed and said
hopefully we won’t need them
I said
ya hopefully your right
then the order was given to load up in the plane Jack Mike and I sat side by side in the plane in the plane I just slept then I woke to the plane jostling around the Sargent yelled
we’re taking fire
the plane kept jostling around I looked out the window across from me and saw a plane get hit with flack fire it hit the left wing engine and then I saw it get hit in the cockpit and it started plummeting to the ground then the doorman yelled
up up up
we got up and hooked up I was number three man in the plane I watched the light then it turned from red to green and we hurried up and jumped out my chute deployed above me like it was supposed to I started looking around on the way down I saw the fiery demise of the plane that went down a line of wreckage and fire 20 yards long once I landed not 10 yards from me was a German soldier he turned and I could tell he was shocked I grabbed my knife and tried to cut myself free of my chute then his wits came to him and he ran at me I kicked him away he fell and I tried to cut myself free he came at me again this time I looked down and saw my 1911 pistol I grabbed it from my holster quickly flipped off the safety and shot him three times in the chest and he wasn’t 5 feet from me when I shot him I cut myself free I grabbed my cigarettes and lighter for a smoke then I saw a silhouette of a person 40 yards from me I grabbed my clicker clicked three times and said the code word Brooklyn the figure looked at me and said NewYork then I herd mikes voice I said
Mike that you
he said
John that you
I nodded and he said
you got a smoke I lost mine in the jump
so I tossed him a carton of cigarettes he looked and saw the german he said
what the hell happened to you
I replied I’ll tell ya on the walk so we started walking we walked until we came to a creek where we saw six Germans crossing coming towards us I turned to him and said
you got the three on the right I got the ones on the left I put up three fingers and started counting down three two one then I came up from behind a small tree once I squeezed the trigger the quiet was interrupted by Rattattah and
ping ping ping and in a couple of seconds the Germans were lying dead in the creek a couple hours later he walked up on a small camp of our troops and there sitting on a log was jack
