[For context: Easy Company is preparing to be reviewed by General Taylor.]
The second formation was a battalion review. Speirs’s philosophy was to avoid the unnecessary but to do properly and with snap the required. He told the men he wanted them to look sharp. Rifles would be clean. Combat suits had to be washed. A huge boiler was set up, the men cooked their clothing with chunks of soap. It took a long time; Private Hudson decided he would skip it. When he showed up for the formation in his filthy combat suit, Speirs berated him furiously. Foley, his platoon commander, jumped on him. Sergeant Marsh, his acting squad leader, tried to make him feel the incredible magnitude of his offense. Hudson grinned sheepishly and said, “Gosh, gee whiz, why is everybody picking on me?”
General Taylor came for the battalion review, trailed by a division PR photographer. As luck would have it, he stopped before Hudson and talked with him. The photographer took their picture together, got Hudson’s name and home-town address, and sent the photo to the local newspaper with a copy to Hudson’s parents. Of course the general looked great talking to a battle-hardened soldier just off the front lines rather than a bunch of rear echelon parade-ground troopers.
”So,” Webster commented, “the only man in E Company with a dirty combat suit was the only man who had his picture taken with the general.”
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen Edward. “The Patrol.” Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004. 237. Print.
Further Reading:
Lieutenant Colonel Ronald C. Speirs
General Maxwell Davenport "Max" Taylor
Private First Class David Kenyon Webster
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