The glider troops were regular soldiers assigned to the glider regiment. Although they were airborne, they were not volunteers and were treated by the Army as second-class men. They did not receive the $50 per month bonus, they had no special badges, they did not wear boots and bloused trousers. Some of them made up posters showing photographs of crashed and burned gliders, with a caption that read: “Join the glider troops! No flight pay. No jump pay. But never a dull moment!”
A few members of Easy went down to the airfield at Bragg to take a ride on a glider. The experience of landing in one of those plywood crates convinced them jumping with a chute was a better way to land.
When General Lee made a glider flight, the landing fractured several of his ribs. “Next time I’ll take a parachute,” he remarked.
”We told you so!” the glider troops shouted.
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen Edward. “Stand Up and Hook Up.” Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004. 40. Print.
Further Reading:
[Easy Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division / “Screaming Eagles”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Company,_506th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)
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