On June 10 Pvt. Alton More asked Malarkey to join him on an expedition to Ste. Mère-Eglise to look through some musette bags that he had seen stacked up there in a vacant lot. More was a rugged John Wayne type, son of a saloonkeeper in Casper, Wyoming. He had married his high school sweetheart, and their first child had been born while he was in England. Malarkey agreed to go, but when they arrived, he felt a bit uneasy when he realized the musette bags had been removed from dead [American] troopers. Nevertheless he joined More in emptying the bags upside down, picking up candy bars, toilet articles, rations, and money.
Suddenly Alton dropped to his knees and, in an almost inaudible voice, said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Malarkey glanced over and saw More looking at a knitted pair of baby booties. They dropped what they had collected and returned to St. Côme-du-Mont, resolving that in the future they would be more respectful of their dead comrades.
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen Edward. “Move Out!” Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004. 90. Print.
Further Reading:
Technical Sergeant Donald G. Malarkey
Marion Robert Morrison / Marion Mitchell Morrison / John Wayne / “Duke”
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