Our take on "The Band of Brothers"...

An article from this past September highlighted the reunion that our old MP Battalion had in Columbus.  It was the initial effort at this sort of thing and went very well.  But as can often happen at these things, mingling can only go so far, and conversations can sometimes lag a bit.  So I put together picture boards which featured training events and individual Soldiers.  And although I was hoping these would spark conversations, bring back old memories and serve as icebreakers where needed, I also found out they sometimes better serve to highlight how much more hair we all had back then, and how much thinner and in better shape we all were.  We had some good laughs at these -- especially when we tried to suck in our guts and regain some of our swagger from back then.

The reason I mention this is I had a chance to reexamine some of the pictures and my attention was caught by these two.  I had been watching (actually rewatching for the maybe the 50th time or so) the HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers, and thought about the "guys" in these two shots. 

As an MP EPW Battalion, we would set up a camp and prepare to conduct our mission of processing, housing, safeguarding, etc., etc. enemy prisoners of war.  The only trouble was we seldom had a population of other soldiers to serve as EPWs.  So, in order to get any training benefit out of the exercise, we often had to "volunteer" our own people to serve as the enemy population.  And when we did this, we would turn our uniform top inside out so we looked the part. 

These particular pictures were taken just before surrendering ourselves to the guards who would process us and take care of us for a few days.

Pretty dangerous looking bunch of desperadoes.

Then PFC Boatwright (l) was looking over this group of "troublemakers and warning us of the consequences of any misbehavior in the camp."  You can see how much we were paying attention to his orientation. 

Being a prisoner was not the most exciting part of our job.  Nobody really wanted to do it but it certainly was necessary because this same training which took place at Ft. McCoy, hot, nasty, and dirty as it was prepared these Soldiers (both the "prisoners" and the guards) for the trials they would have when they were later deployed three and four times to Iraq and Afghanistan.  The leadership lessons that were sometimes learned the hard way, the creativity and initiative that was fostered as well as the endurance and discipline that was taught paid huge dividends when they were actually called to do their thing.

These Soldiers really were professionals.  It was an extreme pleasure to have had the opportunity to serve with them and it was even more rewarding to see them at the reunion, knowing that they all came through their "whatevers" and could share their experiences.  We had some good laughs and I expect we will have even more and greater ones the next time we get together.

You don't always know how the hand you were dealt will play out, and you can't always control all the variables that influence the final outcome.  But you can make the most of the friendships you establish along the way.  You can make the best of tough situations, because they will be the stuff memories are based on later in life.  And as  you recall these memories later in life, a time when some of the edges are a little ragged and details aren't quite as clear, at least you will have the faces and situations to take with you.  And as Major Dick Winters said in the movie, "I was not a hero, but served in the company of heroes."

Life must be lived forwards, but can only really be understood backwards. (Attributed to S. Kierkegaard)

Hooah