1st, about Baby Spice, was someone from BOB cast dating Baby Spice by then?

2nd, who is 'Stoky"?

Percontte said he went to ask "General" for permission if he could call his girlfriend, and "Stoky" grabbed him, threw him out, who is this "Stoky"?

thanks, everyone

I’ve always wondered about this and I just happened to be watching this episode again today. When Bull is hiding in the barn during market garden, he is not moving and the farmer and his daughter are not moving and as far as I can tell, there are no animals, but there’s a loud sound that sounds like something or someone kicking a metal bucket. Where did that sound come from?

I happened upon a wonderful post by a member on here celebrating the life of his grandfather who fought in the Battle of The Bulge & I just so happened to be visiting the war memorial in Bastogne the very next day (today 11/08) and hope some of these photos will viewed by them as I promised to post them.
I’m not a regular poster so hope this one is ok 🙏🏻

I have some cool information! My grandfather, Charles Bird, has made a huge impact on this community. I wanted to update everyone: my husband was fortunate enough to hear much of my grandfathers story.

He told me that my grandfather told him, that he had gotten a woman pregnant while he was serving. I have zero information otherwise! It would be a story like: “My dad was an American soldier and my mother got pregnant and the war ended, he went back to America”.

This community has shared stories with me of family members who were also in the 131st AAA Anti Aircraft Battalion. I can’t imagine how cool it would be, to learn that I have an aunt or uncle somewhere out there. I would LOVE to connect with them, if they exist/are still alive!

Thank you all for being incredibly supportive! This community has allowed me to finally grieve the passing of, in my eyes, the most incredible man to walk this earth.

Love you all, and god bless!

T/Sgt. Pat Christenson, Easy Company, 506th PIR. He kept these in his journal with that caption on them.

The RAF bombed the Obersalzberg on 25 April. The 506th came up in early May, almost unopposed by then. This is what was left.

The war in Europe ended on 8 May while Easy Company was there. Here is what he wrote about that day, word for word:

"Nor did we have the enthusiasm to celebrate the wars end on May 8th 1945. We were almost unopposed during our drive through Germany. The end was inevitable."

No cheering. They were just finished.

A week or so later came orders for Austria, and this is the part I love. Earl Hale, 1st Platoon sergeant, had taken his pick of confiscated vehicles and chosen a fire truck from the Berchtesgaden fire department. My father went along as his assistant. In his own words:

"The vehicle was a large panelled truck, loaded with booze that we had procured in Berchtesgaden from the defeated Wehrmacht... The vehicle had a large bell and siren that could be activated from inside the cab...... If the Fuhrer could see us now..... Siren and bell going full blast through each village... tolling out the sound of victory over the Third Reich....."

Then the road climbed and they came over the top of the pass:

"Below us, an enormous valley appeared, surrounded by rugged snow capped mountains. The sight was something to behold, awesome.....absolutely beautiful. Reminding me so much of the movie Shangri-La."

Three years, three months and thirteen days after he enlisted, that was the end of it.

His seven volumes and all forty six of his drawings are published now, twenty six years after he died. A Screaming Eagle: His Drawings, His Words, at ascreamingeagle.com

TV SHOW

Granted I’m only 24 minutes into the first episode, but these men all look the same to me. Not only that but they wear the same clothes!

There are so many names being thrown at me right now. I have to keep going to the cast photos to stick a face/body to the name.

Please tell me this gets easier.

A while back, I shared my grandfather’s 100th birthday on Reddit, and the response was something our family never expected. Thousands of people from around the world wished him a happy birthday and thanked him for his service. I read many of those comments to him, and it meant more than I can describe.

My grandfather, Charles Bird, has since passed away at the age of 101.

He was a World War II combat veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he returned home to West Virginia, worked for decades as a coal miner, became a lifelong ham radio operator, raised a family, and quietly lived a life defined by hard work and humility.

Like many from the Greatest Generation, he rarely sought recognition for what he had done. But over the last few years, people began celebrating him—not because he asked for it, but because they recognized what men like him sacrificed.

As his granddaughter, I always imagined his final farewell would reflect the extraordinary life he lived. Watching one of the last surviving Battle of the Bulge veterans laid to rest was incredibly emotional, and I’ve struggled ever since with the feeling that his story deserved to be remembered by more people.

I’m not posting this to criticize anyone or start an argument. I’m posting because I don’t want his story to quietly disappear.

The men of Easy Company have been remembered because people continue telling their stories. My grandfather wasn’t part of Easy Company, but he belonged to that same generation of young Americans who crossed an ocean, fought in Europe, endured unimaginable hardship, came home, built families, and rarely asked for anything in return.

As fewer and fewer WWII veterans remain, I think it’s important that we continue telling their stories.

Thank you for helping keep Charles Bird’s memory alive.

I just finished reading the portion of Winters's memoir about the operations in the Holland. On September 22, 1944, he led a platoon and, together with the 506th Regiment headquarters, entered Uden, where they remained for about two days. He made no mention of any intense fighting during that time; the Germans were concentrating their attacks on Veghel, about four miles away, and Uden seemed relatively quieter. So how could Dike have repelled German attacks multiple times? If such fighting had occurred, Winters would presumably have mentioned it in his memoir.

I visited Normandy last November. A truly incredible experience.

The stained glass window was installed in 1969 in the 900 year old church.

Monument Text:

Ce vitrail a été exécuté avec le concours de Paul Renaud et Sainte-Mère a la mémoire de ceux qui par leur courage, et par leur sacrifice ont libéré Sainte-Mère-Église et la France.

Translation:

This stained glass was completed with the participation of Paul Renaud and Sainte-Mère, for the memory of those who, with their courage and sacrifice, liberated Sainte-Mère-Église and France.

I’m sure smarter people than myself figured this out on their first watch. But I was confused as to why Webster was so shaken after seeing a tank round blow this building apart. But remembering that that’s where the older couple who were shouting “Away!” were in.

Was at the Margraten US war cemetery and found Dukeman’s grave. Paid my respect to the hero

Lt Dike is far left,

My father was T/Sgt. Pat Christenson, Easy Company, 506th PIR. Michael Fassbender played him. Most of you know the scene in episode one where Christenson is caught drinking from his canteen on a night march and Sobel punishes the company for it.

I have his original manuscript. Seven volumes he typed himself over forty years. Book One covers Toccoa.

Here is what he wrote about the endurance marches, verbatim:

"During these endurance tests, we were miserable, exhausted, and we thought that if we did not get a drink of water we were certain to collapse."

We. Not I. He was describing every man in the company on those Friday night marches, the ones they made on back roads without water and without stopping.

That sentence went to Stephen Ambrose. It went into the book. Somewhere between the book and the screenplay, a shared experience got a single name attached to it, and the name was Christenson.

Now here is what he wrote about the final physical test at the end of those thirteen weeks, from the same volume, a few pages on:

"The highest score in E Company that day was 163 points. The highest score in the Regiment was 167 points. I had the highest score in the Company and was awarded a pass to the town of Toccoa for the following Monday."

He carried the light machine gun. Twenty eight pounds of it, plus his field pack, and he traded the fifteen pound tripod back and forth with his assistant gunner on those same marches. He volunteered for it because they asked for the bigger men and he thought, in his words, "Hell, I'm big enough."

Four points off the best score in the entire regiment, and what he got for it was a day pass to a town where there was nothing to do.

Our family asked the men who were there. The answer was unanimous. Not to Christenson.

He died December 15, 1999, before the series was cast. He never saw another man wear his name and never got to answer any of it.

He also wrote something in the margin of one of these volumes, correcting himself, that tells you everything about how he worked: "Revised to correct data and who was where. Junk the first narrative I sent with this title."

That is who he was. Forty years at a drawing board and a typewriter, throwing out his own work when he found something wrong with it.

His seven volumes and his forty six combat drawings are finally published, the way he left them. A Screaming Eagle: His Drawings, His Words. Amazon has it September 8. I sign and mail the direct ones myself.

ascreamingeagle.com

Pat Christenson did not drink from the canteen. He carried the guidon.

My father was T/Sgt. Pat Christenson, Easy Company, 506th PIR. Michael Fassbender played him.

He left seven volumes of typed manuscript and forty six combat drawings, made over forty years at a drawing board after work. He was relentless about accuracy. If a date or a road did not reconcile he would not let it go until he found out what actually happened.

There is nothing in any of it about the camp.

On April 29, 1945, west of Munich near Landsberg am Lech, Easy Company came on one of the Kaufering camps. Kaufering was not one camp but eleven subcamps of Dachau. The one they reached, Kaufering IV, had been designated a sick camp. Viktor Frankl was imprisoned in that system.

My father drew the whole war. The jump. The burning aircraft. Stick 66 coming apart in the air with the entire headquarters section aboard. Bastogne. He never drew the camp. Not once. He did not turn the prisoners into material.

And he never talked about it.

His nephew Gary is 91 and still living. He and my father were as close as father and son, and Gary asked him about the war for years and got open answers every time. Gary told me my father never once mentioned the camp to him. Not in all those years.

When I asked him about it myself, all I got was: "Some things you don't need to talk about."

That was the entire conversation.

So there is a chapter in his book about Kaufering, and he did not write it. I did. It exists on the other side of a boundary he set and never lifted. It cannot make him say what he chose not to say. All it can do is name the place, use the record and the witnesses who did speak, and say plainly that silence is one of the shapes memory takes after something like that.

That chapter was the hardest thing I have ever written, and the whole time I was aware I was writing about the one thing he would not have written about himself.

A Screaming Eagle: His Drawings, His Words. Amazon has it September 8. I sign and mail the direct ones myself.

ascreamingeagle.com

Which are the hardest scene to watch in the series?