His writing that he died in 19 I don't know where the 1948 comes
Jenn:from, but his dying that he died in 1948 doesn't really get fact
Jenn:checked until the miniseries comes
Scott:Then of course it gets really popular
Jenn:He gets really popular, and his family sees it, and
Jenn:this is in the miniseries.
Jenn:It says it at the end, Blythe dies in 1948.
Jenn:His family will see this and be like, hold up.
Jenn:No he's not.
Scott:Welcome to Talk with History.
Scott:I am your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jenn.
Scott:Hello.
Scott:On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels,
Scott:YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations
Scott:with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.
Scott:Today, we're heading back to hallowed ground, Arlington
Scott:National Cemetery, one last time.
Scott:We're on a mission to honor some real life heroes, the men of Easy
Scott:Company, immortalized in the book and mini series Band of Brothers.
Scott:From jumping into occupied France on D Day to braving the brutal winter
Scott:offensive in the Battle of the Bulge, these soldiers faced unimaginable horrors.
Scott:But their courage, their camaraderie, and their unwavering spirit became legend.
Scott:today, five of these easy company veterans rest in Arlington, a place of quiet
Scott:reflection and immense national pride.
Scott:us as we locate their headstones and share the stories of these extraordinary men.
Scott:So grab your headphones, lace up your walking shoes and prepare to be inspired.
Scott:This is a journey of remembrance.
Scott:and a tribute to the band of brothers buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Scott:All right, Jen, so we know what we're talking about
Jenn:talking about today.
Jenn:Walk With History has done many videos from Arlington, and we
Jenn:are very now intimately familiar with the topography of Arlington.
Jenn:We know what areas you're going to cover, and basically, if you're going
Jenn:there to cover a certain topic, how you want to plan your day, because you
Jenn:can't be walking across the cemetery two or three times in one visit.
Jenn:I would recommend.
Jenn:Not even walking across it in one visit.
Jenn:It is a massive space and You really don't get any kind of vehicle access
Jenn:unless you have someone buried there.
Jenn:So you must walk and it is hilly and it is a lot of exercise and
Jenn:if it's Anytime in the heat of the summer it can be very tiring.
Scott:what we we have for those listening to this Podcast episode, right?
Scott:So on our youtube channel, we've cut we've probably made Maybe almost a
Scott:dozen videos from from arlington.
Scott:I've got a whole playlist and i'll link that that video playlist in the
Scott:show notes of this podcast episode, but we've been there numerous times
Scott:in almost every season in almost every condition Covered it's just some
Scott:incredibly amazing people You actors and actresses and, obviously all veterans.
Scott:It's been, we've done women, we've
Jenn:done Tuskegee Airmen, Arlington House.
Jenn:We do John F.
Jenn:Kennedy, Tomb of the Unknown, so we do the big ones that you're going
Jenn:to see on like an original visit.
Jenn:And then we started to do more off the beaten path.
Jenn:So we got into the back of Arlington and some randoms like when we
Jenn:did Gunny Ermey, he's way off on the right side in a new section.
Jenn:And so it was after we did Masters of the Air.
Jenn:That took us to all the way back to the right to the left section where we found
Jenn:Egan There we started to go well What other series have people that could be
Jenn:buried at Arlington and we really were like band of brothers We couldn't and
Jenn:we couldn't believe that we a hadn't done that and be really no one has
Scott:Right, and because we've done Tuskegee Airmen, we've danced all
Scott:around World War II, all throughout Arlington, and we don't know how we
Scott:didn't cover the Band of Brothers, but you found out that there's five
Scott:that are currently buried there.
Jenn:They're currently buried there.
Jenn:And what's nice?
Jenn:I would say nice about the band of brothers is there in it really three
Jenn:sections that are pretty close together.
Jenn:So if you're going to visit the band of brothers in Arlington,
Jenn:you can see all of them relatively easily and quickly, which is nice.
Scott:Now, one of the, the first ones that we're going to talk about here was
Scott:actually featured in the mini series.
Scott:Relatively prominently
Scott:. Jenn: We're going to talk about a more controversial character right
Scott:off the get go because he has a prominent part in in the series.
Scott:And he also was depicted inaccurately by Stephen Ambrose,
Scott:who wrote the book in 1992.
Scott:It's published.
Scott:The show was made in 2001, right after 9 11.
Scott:It airs.
Scott:So it gets a lot of notoriety and camaraderie around the
Scott:patriotism of the time.
Scott:But Stephen Ambrose, who's a great scholar, really messes up on this person.
Scott:And this person has a very prominent role in the series.
Scott:So we're talking about Albert Blythe.
Scott:He
Scott:Yeah, so tell me a little bit about when now he was he a private first class
Jenn:was private first class with the Easy company, second
Jenn:battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 101st Airborne.
Jenn:He.
Jenn:makes that initial jump on D Day with the rest of Easy Company, the original
Jenn:men of Easy Company and he gets separated from everybody and he's depicted in the
Jenn:series as he gets separated and he's Scared he doesn't quite know what to do.
Jenn:So he just goes to sleep
Jenn:Band of Brothers: Sir, when I landed on D Day, I found myself
Jenn:in a ditch all by myself.
Jenn:I fell asleep.
Jenn:I think it was, it was air sickness pills, I guess.
Jenn:When I woke up, I didn't really try to find my unit.
Jenn:To fight.
Jenn:Just
Jenn:I just stayed put.
Jenn:What's your name, Trooper?
Jenn:Blithe, sir.
Jenn:Albert Blithe.
Scott:The nice thing about doing covering miniseries like this sometimes or
Scott:Historical figures covered in miniseries is you can cut in good examples.
Scott:And so I actually cut in An example of him saying I don't in the miniseries.
Scott:He wasn't explaining it to dick winters It was someone else and you
Scott:can tell the way that they crafted for the miniseries this character
Scott:was someone who was afraid, right?
Scott:He said, hey, when I landed on D Day, I woke up and I was in my foxhole
Scott:and I didn't go look for my company.
Scott:I just laid there.
Scott:And he he's portraying someone who, who it's, you put in the
Scott:category of coward, unfortunately.
Jenn:I want to debunk that because I want people to understand.
Jenn:First of all, Blythe is coming from Philadelphia.
Jenn:He only went to three years of high school before he enlisted in the paratroopers.
Jenn:So he's 18, 19 years old when he's enlisting from his hometown.
Jenn:There's no cowardice here.
Jenn:He's what they call a misdrop.
Jenn:So a misdrop is, there was a number of paratroopers who didn't hit the target
Jenn:and got scattered out in different areas.
Scott:We'll talk a little bit more about, one of the other band of
Scott:brothers buried here talks about it in an interview and we'll talk we'll
Scott:discuss that later and how that happens
Jenn:you have to imagine to, to have trained with everybody to plan for D Day.
Jenn:And then this huge invasion of D Day and then to get misdropped and lost
Jenn:he teams up with other misdrops and they found the rest of Easy Company.
Jenn:But what you do in those initial moments is like scary because you're
Jenn:by yourself across enemy lines in France occupied Nazi Germany.
Jenn:And and you can understand like what he's saying is, I didn't
Jenn:know what to do, so I fell.
Jenn:I went to sleep or I just stayed in my position and waited
Jenn:till other people found me.
Jenn:That's more of what he did.
Jenn:He's basically just stood fast and he just waited.
Jenn:Now they depicted in this.
Jenn:So I went to sleep like, he maybe he fell asleep, but it wasn't as if he
Jenn:was like, I don't know what to do.
Jenn:I'm scared.
Jenn:I'm gonna fall asleep.
Jenn:I'm gonna go to sleep.
Scott:even his show he says oh, I think it was the air sickness medicine But I
Scott:also found in an interview later where dick winters, you know in a interview
Scott:says the same thing that you're saying is he debunks that he's listen, the
Scott:miniseries was exaggerated, right?
Scott:And he goes on to say, let me tell you about this man
Jenn:I think the problem Winters had with this, and this is a problem that you and I
Jenn:both have with this, is he's not a coward.
Jenn:He is doing his duty.
Jenn:He did jump and he got lost.
Jenn:He got, not by any fault of his own.
Jenn:He did find his group.
Jenn:He does continue to fight.
Jenn:You will see he, he's actually injured by a sniper.
Jenn:He does receive the Purple Heart.
Jenn:So what happens after he's reunited is it shows some kind of, he gets
Jenn:hysterical blindness, they call it.
Jenn:So it's basically like a temporary case of PTSD where you're just so overwhelmed.
Jenn:by the stress of everything that your body reacts to stress and we've,
Scott:down.
Jenn:we've talked about this a lot, whether or not you want your body to
Jenn:react to stress, your body will react to
Scott:The thing is, is there are certain things that you can train to
Scott:and there's certain things that you just can't a good example that always
Scott:pops into my head is for mountaineers.
Scott:Mountaineers, they can train to be in good physical condition, have good
Scott:cardio, but until you actually get to altitude, you, you won't know until
Scott:how your body's gonna react to it.
Scott:You can be in peak physical condition here at sea level, be a marathon
Scott:runner and all this stuff, and carry heavy pa heavy, heavy packs.
Scott:You get to altitude and you might, your body just might not be able to
Scott:handle it and that's, no, there's no conditioning around that.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:So this is to me, an example now, I think for the mini series.
Scott:about again in the past, they capture a bunch of what happens to other
Scott:people and they tend to embody multiple examples of something into a character.
Scott:I have a feeling that's what happened because what the, of known
Scott:for in this mini series is his interaction later with Dick Winters.
Jenn:And that is true.
Jenn:So Winters does.
Jenn:Winters goes to the infirmary for another reason, and as he's in the
Jenn:infirmary, he goes down the line to see his guys, and Blythe is one of them.
Jenn:And Blythe is having a case of temporary hysteria blindness,
Jenn:and Winters talks to him.
Jenn:And Winters basically levels with him, humanizes it, and tells
Jenn:him, we're, we're all scared.
Jenn:Right?
Jenn:Even Winters admits we're all scared.
Jenn:We all, we all are not really knowing what we're doing.
Jenn:We're hoping training takes over.
Jenn:All of us are in this together.
Jenn:This is war.
Jenn:Winters even says it happens relatively quickly where Bly gets this understanding.
Jenn:He feels some camaraderie.
Jenn:He feels understood.
Jenn:I think he feels a little bit of a shared.
Jenn:Kinship there, which happens with soldiers and starts to come out of
Jenn:it because it is a physical ailment that is brought on by stress.
Jenn:And once you can start to alleviate that stress or at least deal with the stress,
Jenn:the physical element heals itself.
Jenn:And so hysterical blindness basically clears and then He is part of a
Jenn:group that investigates a farmhouse.
Jenn:Days later, he's shot in the collarbone by a sniper.
Jenn:He recovers from the wound.
Jenn:He's awarded the Purple Heart.
Jenn:Now the series will say that he never recovers from the wounds and dies in 1948.
Jenn:I have no idea where Stephen Ambrose got that, but most people say it's
Jenn:because no one ever really talked to Blythe again after he's injured.
Scott:I think Dick Winters said in that later interview he mentioned
Scott:that he got wounded and he said that they thought they had lost him.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:So I'm I'm connecting some dots based on what we've seen in your research
Scott:is that my assumption is that he was injured Right ended up surviving
Scott:it but the rest of easy company had already moved on They didn't realize
Scott:that he survived and then from there.
Scott:I think he was he's probably shipped home
Jenn:Yeah, he was shipped home and he was released from the
Jenn:army hospital in October 1945.
Jenn:So it's after the end of the war and he basically loses touch with everybody.
Jenn:Now he eventually will serve in Korea.
Jenn:He re ups and serves in the Korea in the 187th Airborne where he's awarded a bronze
Jenn:star and a silver star for jumping behind
Jenn:. enemy lines surrounded by a Chinese battalion.
Jenn:He never gets to retire from military service because he dies
Jenn:at age 44 in December of 1967.
Jenn:So I think this is a perfect storm.
Jenn:Since Ambrose writes Band of Brothers and it's published in 1992, he's doing
Jenn:his research in the 80s, publishing it.
Jenn:Blythe does die in the 60s, so he doesn't have to fact check
Jenn:Blythe's death, but Blythe is dead.
Jenn:So it works, and if you're not talking specifically to family or reaching out
Jenn:to family or finding people who knew him and remembered him, His writing
Jenn:that he died in 19 I don't know where the 1948 comes from, but his dying
Jenn:that he died in 1948 doesn't really get fact checked until the miniseries comes
Scott:Then of course it gets really popular
Jenn:He gets really popular, and his family sees it, and
Jenn:this is in the miniseries.
Jenn:It says it at the end, Blythe dies in 1948.
Jenn:His family will see this and be like, hold up.
Jenn:No he's not.
Jenn:He has a wife.
Jenn:With Kay, he has a son Gordon, who will, who will see this and talk about what
Jenn:really happened on active duty in Germany.
Jenn:He felt nauseated, returned from a weekend at Bastogne in Belgium.
Jenn:He had taken part in a commemorating ceremony of the Battle of the Bulge,
Jenn:and he was taken to the emergency department in Germany where he was
Jenn:met, admitted with a perforated ulcer and he dies in intensive care.
Jenn:And then he's Buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full honors.
Jenn:So in Band of Brothers, it is depicted, unfortunately, it isn't accurate.
Jenn:The Blythe family comes out and it led to corrections in subsequent
Jenn:books of Band of Brothers.
Jenn:So if you have new editions of Band of Brothers, it is corrected but you will
Jenn:still see it in the original series.
Jenn:And we just want to honor all of you.
Jenn:Blythe because he was a hero and some people will say he's depicted not as one
Jenn:and I just want to make it clear just because you suffer from hysteria blindness
Jenn:or just because you suffer from some kind of PTSD or just because you get separated
Jenn:from your group and you hold fast.
Jenn:instead of taking on a thousand German soldiers by yourself
Jenn:does not make you a coward.
Jenn:You are doing your duty.
Jenn:You're doing your job and you have to overcome challenges and challenges don't
Jenn:just happen to you after your service.
Jenn:Your PTSD doesn't just happen to you after you're done.
Jenn:PTSD can happen during your service.
Jenn:Your time during your service as you're fighting.
Jenn:And if you overcome it, then in the moment you are still
Jenn:overcoming and you're still a hero.
Jenn:And so we wanted to honor Blythe.
Jenn:He's the first person I visited in Arlington.
Jenn:He's right by Robert, Todd Lincoln.
Jenn:So most people will go see Robert Todd Lincoln, that is Lincoln's oldest son.
Scott:just like down the hill.
Jenn:down the hill from it and it's so very easy to find and there's
Jenn:a path to Robert Todd Lincoln's Sarcophagus, and so just right
Jenn:down the hill you will see Blythe.
Jenn:I actually met other people there who were looking for Blythe and I Directed
Jenn:them to Egan from Masters of the Air.
Jenn:They didn't know Egan was there and we took pictures They were from Poland
Jenn:and we talked for a little while.
Jenn:So Blythe is a visited person from Band of Brothers at Arlington
Jenn:and he's at Easygrave to find and he's there waiting for you.
Scott:It was, it was cool to be able to make that part of the video for him.
Scott:Now, the next person we're going to talk about was was actually
Scott:part of the leadership portrayed in the show band of brothers.
Scott:And this was Lieutenant Colonel Strayer, if I remember
Jenn:Yeah, Robert Strayer.
Jenn:He was the battalion commander for a time over Easy Company.
Jenn:He supported making the show Band of Brothers, but he said
Jenn:it was hard for him to watch.
Jenn:He's depicted by actor Phil McKee.
Jenn:He is in charge of Easy Company, hands it over to Dick Winters.
Scott:Now, if, if you are a Band of Brothers fan, and you remember the show
Scott:so picture there's, I don't know the name of the episode, but they are still
Scott:in England and they are training, right?
Scott:And it's the scene where some of the soldiers kind of trick Captain
Scott:Sobel . Into cutting the fence of this farmer's field, right?
Scott:One of the soldiers is yelling from behind some bushes Imitate and
Scott:basically imitating like a major,
Scott:. Band of Brothers: Connie, Bobo's lost again, right?
Scott:Yeah, he's lost.
Scott:Hey, Luz.
Scott:Luz.
Scott:Can you do Major Horton?
Scott:That's a wild pair of crap in the woods, son.
Scott:That's good.
Scott:If you get a good major, you can go see Smuck.
Scott:Can I just move it?
Scott:Oh, yeah.
Scott:Yes.
Scott:Luz, you got it.
Scott:You got it.
Scott:Come on.
Scott:All right, just this once.
Scott:No, sir.
Scott:It's here.
Scott:You're a full grid off.
Scott:Goddamn it.
Scott:Is there a problem, Captain Sobel?
Scott:Who said that?
Scott:Who broke silence?
Scott:I think it's Major Horton, sir.
Scott:Major Horton?
Scott:What is he?
Scott:Did he join us?
Scott:I think maybe he's moving between the platoons, sir.
Scott:What is the goddamn holdup, Master Sobel?
Scott:A fence!
Scott:Sir, um God.
Scott:A barbed wire fence!
Scott:Oh, that dog just ain't gonna hunt!
Scott:Now you cut that fence and get this god damn platoon on the move!
Scott:Yes, sir!
Scott:Then It flashes forward to, Dick Winter seeing Sobel come up, they're
Scott:completely lost and all this stuff.
Scott:Band of Brothers: You've done it now, Yanks.
Scott:You've captured me.
Scott:Would that be the enemy?
Scott:As a matter of fact, yes.
Scott:And then again, it steps right into Sobel getting yelled
Scott:at by then Major Strayer.
Scott:Band of Brothers: Who was the idiot who cut that man's fence?
Scott:I was ordered to, sir.
Scott:By who?
Scott:Major Horton, sir.
Scott:Major Horton?
Scott:Yes, sir.
Scott:Major Horton told you to do that?
Scott:Yes, sir.
Scott:Major Horton ordered you to cut the fence?
Scott:Yes, he did.
Scott:Major Horton is on leave.
Scott:And then you just, you see, it's that moment in a show where the, you
Scott:the antagonist gets his comeuppance.
Scott:And that was one of those moments.
Scott:And it was, it was major Strayer that was giving him the, reading him the right act.
Jenn:So he's in charge.
Jenn:So in a major, as a major in 1942, he's in command of the 2nd
Jenn:Battalion of the 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne.
Jenn:In 1945, he's made executive officer of the 506, and his position as the 2nd
Jenn:Battalion CO was filled by Major Richard.
Jenn:Winters.
Jenn:So that he basically gets promoted and then Winters takes his job.
Jenn:During his service, he's going to earn four bronze stars, one
Jenn:silver star and one purple heart.
Jenn:He's pretty badass too.
Jenn:And I think he's a good leadership example for winters.
Jenn:I think winters looks up to him more, definitely more than Sobel , but
Jenn:he fills that role because he had a good example from Strayer on how to
Scott:a good example from Strayer on how to build that wall.
Scott:He's he's a little bit of that connection between the colonel who ultimately who
Scott:finally sends Sobel off to Without he fires him without firing him He's like
Scott:this is a promotion to send some off to go do you know to to do training?
Scott:And major strayer is right there, right?
Scott:So again, if you if you remember that scene where Sobel is essentially
Scott:quote unquote promoted But he's sent off to do to run a training company.
Scott:Major Strayer is the third person in that scene.
Scott:It's the colonel in Sobel , but Major Strayer is sitting
Scott:there right off to the side.
Scott:Doesn't have many lines, but he's right there.
Scott:And that's how, and that's how it would have been.
Jenn:Yeah.
Jenn:So you and I relate a lot to this, right?
Jenn:Because we were both officers in the military and I always talk about Dick
Jenn:Winters and what it takes to lead and then move up the rank politically
Jenn:as the leadership role gets more and more I wouldn't say important, but,
Jenn:It's more difficult because you're overseeing more and more people and
Jenn:it's more and more political and then it's more and more your decisions are
Jenn:very heavy at this point because they have lasting impact and they trickle
Jenn:down over a ton of your personnel and that is where this is where Strayer is.
Jenn:And these are the hard decisions, because even though you see Sobel and
Jenn:you're like, Oh, he's terrible leader.
Jenn:He does prepare his men better than any other leader because he makes them do
Jenn:all this physical activity to a fault.
Jenn:But they are so conditioned and ready for D Day.
Jenn:And even though Sobel is not good with the leadership of taking any kind
Jenn:of criticism, or learning from his mistakes, he really is one of those
Jenn:leaders who feels like they're right all the time and really rests on rank.
Jenn:and You still as a leader of someone like that, you are still trying to
Jenn:teach and mentor them to be better.
Jenn:You don't just automatically kick them out or change or you really do your best
Jenn:to try to help them learn from that.
Jenn:And unfortunately in this situation, trouble didn't.
Jenn:We're, we're getting into battle, time is of the essence, and they do
Jenn:make this quick leadership change.
Jenn:But you see how difficult it is even for the leaders to do
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:And that's why I I liked that you covered Strayer because, right, as,
Scott:as someone who's more senior now, right, as you go up, you deal with like
Scott:knuckleheads or even good soldiers and sailors that make knucklehead decisions.
Scott:And so if you think about it, Strayer dealt with Sobel when he cut
Scott:the fence, he probably dealt with the NCOs during the kind of little
Scott:mutiny , right, when they said, Hey, we're not going to follow this man.
Scott:And the colonel's yelling at them, but you know that Strayer was
Scott:the one that first got that word.
Scott:He's I can just picture Strayer being like, seriously, come on.
Scott:He's I don't want to deal with this.
Scott:I can just picture him in between before the information got to the colonel.
Jenn:I, I picture the colonel ripping Strayer apart before
Jenn:he rips apart the NCOs, right?
Jenn:He's gonna, believe me, your higher ups are gonna take it out first on
Jenn:the person next closest to them.
Jenn:They don't take it out on
Scott:Strayer probably got it first from the colonel and the colonel
Scott:probably calmed down after Strayer took the initial shots and then,
Jenn:And that's your job.
Scott:and that's, that's part of it.
Scott:So it was, it was really neat to be able to cover him cause not one
Scott:of the core characters, but part of the leadership and then to see what
Scott:he did after the fact was really
Jenn:Exactly.
Jenn:And in just instrumental, just another good leader.
Jenn:He's right beside the the main building of Arlington.
Jenn:So when you walk into Arlington, the main building that has the
Jenn:restrooms and the little, Visitor center, this set, he's in the next
Jenn:section, rape recited to the left.
Jenn:Very easy to walk to and very easy to find.
Jenn:He's buried there with his wife, Mildred.
Jenn:She's an army nurse.
Jenn:They marry in January, 1942, and he retired from the army after the war.
Jenn:They settled down in Pennsylvania and then they retired to Florida.
Jenn:He dies on December 18th, 2002.
Jenn:And so they're both at Arlington National Cemetery.
Jenn:And we thank them both for their service.
Scott:Now, the next person we're talking about here is not quite as
Scott:much out there on him, but I believe he was, he was I don't know if he was
Scott:part of the original Easy Company, but he is buried in Arlington and he
Scott:did serve with, with Easy Company.
Jenn:So Arthur Moserall there isn't a lot on him.
Jenn:He's hard to find information on, but he is part of the original
Jenn:and he's born in 1940, 1924.
Jenn:So if he's making the jump in 1944, he's 20 years old.
Jenn:So these guys are so young.
Jenn:He's born in Maine and he was a paratrooper.
Jenn:He marries Wanda.
Jenn:Together they have Georgette and Hope.
Jenn:He dies on June 11th, 1988 and he's buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Scott:And that's one of the things that I liked.
Scott:About the miniseries overall was Obviously you have the central figures right the
Scott:main characters that everybody knows But they are really a representation
Scott:of everybody else that was there that wasn't written about that wasn't You
Scott:know didn't have journals that they could be read and this that and the
Scott:other so for soldiers like mazerol They are a representation because he
Scott:was right there with them during the
Jenn:Yeah.
Jenn:He was like, it even says on his tombstone the 101st airborne.
Jenn:I always like the ones that are simple.
Jenn:Right?
Jenn:So I appreciate that about it as well.
Jenn:He's 63 years old when he dies, and he dies in Arlington, Virginia.
Jenn:So he must have ended up there for his retirement, even though he is from
Jenn:Maine, but he has looks like he has two daughters, Georgette and Hope.
Jenn:And there's not much else on him.
Jenn:But we want to recognize him as one of He's the company's 101st.
Scott:Our next figure that we're about to talk about, actually, he was
Scott:on the show, but he portrayed himself.
Scott:So he was in some of the interviews.
Jenn:Yeah, so Forrest Guth, they had planned to put him as a character
Jenn:in the show, and they actually made a uniform, because I guess his
Jenn:uniform was, more specific to him.
Jenn:He put a lot of pockets on his uniform because I guess he liked
Jenn:to have a lot of things on him, carry a lot of things on him.
Jenn:And as most people know in the military, you can individualize your uniform
Jenn:to a point, especially in combat.
Scott:especially in combat, especially, I mean, when you're
Scott:spending, years away from home, you're going to customize your stuff.
Jenn:I mean, you can think about the SEALs do it all the time, even
Scott:And he was interesting because not only did he have some kind of brief
Scott:spots and interviews during the mini series, but he stuck around long enough
Scott:that I actually found some, some other interviews done with him that I found
Scott:on YouTube that I was able to cut into our video and him talking about, he must
Scott:have been some sort of like engineer.
Scott:He worked in an engineering plant because he, he, he talked about
Scott:how he could have been deferred.
Scott:he was working for.
Scott:like a defense industry company, but then him and some of his
Scott:friends in his hometown were like, you know what, we should join up.
Scott:Let's go join the 101st Airborne, because I think they're getting paid
Scott:50 bucks, 50 bucks more a month.
Scott:So I'm, we're going to join up with
Jenn:Yeah, he, he's very money driven, which at a young age, you would be he's
Jenn:a part of the original guys in Georgia.
Jenn:He's in Aldeborne, our video from there.
Jenn:So he'll be there as well.
Jenn:What his ability to do that makes him so special is he has this
Jenn:ability to modify and repair weapons.
Jenn:He was able to make his M1 rifle fully automatic.
Scott:Really?
Scott:Yeah.
Jenn:So that's where his engineering brain comes in, and that's why he is
Jenn:became the a member of the armor for their for his comrades, his uniform was unique.
Jenn:He sold on the extra pockets to carry extra equipment and ammunition.
Scott:And you said that he was one of two.
Scott:The other was a character that was in the main series, was Shifty Powers
Scott:who was like an expert sharpshooter.
Scott:Yeah.
Jenn:They were the only two got expert.
Jenn:So if you, you and I both know if you see ribbons, and you get your
Jenn:rifle qual and your pistol qual.
Jenn:Sometimes you'll see an S on the ribbon, which means you're a sharpshooter,
Jenn:but sometimes you'll see an E on the ribbon, which means you're an expert.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:And, and typically, especially, in companies like this, if you got
Scott:only two of your soldiers were, were expert, marksmen, they're
Scott:going to be doing some of that work.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:That was, you're going to jump in behind enemy lines and if
Scott:you need a sharpshooter, you're going to grab your two experts.
Jenn:And if you can make your weapon fully automatic, which means he doesn't
Jenn:have to reload as quick To make your sharpshooter have an audit that it
Jenn:just puts you ahead of the game.
Jenn:So that's that's why he has the extra pockets.
Jenn:When you think about he's carrying the extra equipment and doing things
Jenn:like that, he made his first combat jump into Normandy on June 6th, 1944.
Scott:If I remember correctly, he gets injured and I think he gets sent home.
Jenn:was, he jumped into Operation Market Garden on September 17th, 1944.
Jenn:And his, he was injured during the landing because of a parachute malfunction.
Jenn:He's taken to an army hospital in England.
Jenn:He rejoins Easy Company in France before they're transported to Bastogne and
Jenn:to fight in the Battle of the Bulge.
Jenn:So he is with
Scott:So He comes back.
Scott:Okay.
Jenn:And he's selected for the patrol mission.
Jenn:led by Sergeant Ken Mercer because of his German speaking ability.
Jenn:And he won a 30 day furlough to return to the States.
Jenn:And then the war ended before he could rejoin his unit.
Jenn:So he just has a lot going for him.
Jenn:He can speak German.
Scott:It's got that engineering brain,
Jenn:an engineering brain and he's a expert marksman.
Jenn:So he re he enrolls in college when he's done.
Jenn:He gets a master's degree.
Jenn:He becomes a teacher in Norfolk, Virginia.
Scott:is where we're recording
Jenn:And that's where we're recording this.
Jenn:And that's where he meets his wife, Harriet.
Jenn:They married 1949.
Jenn:They moved to Delaware.
Jenn:He becomes an electronics teacher at high school there.
Jenn:And then he dies in August in Delaware.
Jenn:He does interpret the German at one point, but his role is replaced by another actor
Jenn:in the episode Last Patrol, but that was him who really did that interpretation.
Jenn:And we just want to honor him because it just goes to show you all these
Jenn:skills you have that really can be helpful in war, speaking the
Jenn:language, being a good marksman,
Scott:Well, and, and to our point earlier, he was another misdrop, so he
Scott:talks about in his later interview, it was, 60s or 70s, something like that,
Scott:that got posted on YouTube about, he he's recounting his experience for D Day, and
Scott:he's talking about seeing the tracers, he's talking about hearing bullets hitting
Scott:the wings of his plane, watching another plane go down, and then he, he says that
Scott:even he landed two miles from where he was supposed to meet with his company.
Scott:And it was because these B 17 or whatever they were, whatever the
Scott:aircraft were that they were flying, they were jumping out of the, the pilots
Scott:were still relatively new as well.
Scott:And so instead of going, much slower, they were going about twice the speed
Scott:that they should have been flying.
Scott:So they flew too far.
Scott:So when the green light, went on and everybody jumps out of the plane.
Scott:They're two miles, two miles away.
Jenn:So that nervousness of war, right?
Jenn:And so that's what he's talking about that.
Jenn:Even though D Day was planned so, specifically that because
Jenn:they went faster than I think they were supposed to go like 45
Scott:He said 75 but they were doing one
Jenn:Yeah.
Jenn:So they went double 75 knots.
Jenn:They went one 50.
Jenn:And because of that, they landed two miles off course and to land two miles
Jenn:off course as an individual with no protection and then trying to find the
Jenn:rest of your crew, which he does, but.
Jenn:to go two miles in enemy territory, which all the pockets with all the
Jenn:ammunition on him, which means it's heavier, which means he's gonna have to,
Jenn:it's almost like rucking at that point.
Jenn:But he does it.
Jenn:So he talks about that.
Jenn:So I just think he's It's just an unsung hero.
Jenn:Again, that skill set that comes into play.
Jenn:And then to live in Norfolk, Virginia.
Jenn:I think I, I shout that out in the video since we're here as
Scott:Yeah, you definitely do.
Scott:Now, the last person that, that we covered for this video was, goes by
Scott:the last name of Taylor and that he was interesting because he was
Scott:an NCO if I remember correctly.
Scott:And I, I believe you even had mentioned that he had taken part in the when
Scott:the NCOs went to the colonel said, Hey, we're not gonna follow Sobel
Scott:. he as a person wasn't really portrayed in the show.
Scott:But he was one of those NCOs.
Scott:He
Jenn:So we're talking about tech tech Sergeant Amos Buck Taylor.
Jenn:Now I want to reiterate these last couple of graves are all in section 60.
Jenn:So there's really only three sections you have to go to
Jenn:in Arlington to see them all.
Jenn:Like I said, Blythe is by Robert Todd Strayer is right.
Jenn:Right to the left.
Jenn:I think it's section 54 and then section 60 is these last three which is again
Jenn:60 is one of our most visited sections.
Jenn:It's a large section.
Jenn:It's an active section.
Jenn:It's a more recent section.
Jenn:So if you're out in section 60, more than likely you are going
Jenn:to see people visiting graves.
Jenn:And that's what Taylor is as well, but he is an NCO of Easy Company.
Jenn:And he is a part of the original 140 men.
Jenn:His life story is featured in a 2009 book.
Jenn:We who are alive and remain the untold stories of band of brothers, because
Jenn:he is part of this whole original group he has this interaction with Sobel.
Jenn:Because he goes AWOL from the training at Fort Benning.
Jenn:He goes AWOL to meet his, to meet Elaine, who he later will marry and his
Jenn:three day pass is canceled by Sobel.
Jenn:And He will marry her, and he was supposed to marry her then, but
Jenn:his 3 day pass gets cancelled, and then he has to marry her later, and
Jenn:then He has opinions about Sobol.
Jenn:He says that he was, he never hated him.
Jenn:He thought he could be unfair and he could not be trusted for battle situations.
Jenn:And because of that, he's one of the NCOs that participate in the mutiny in England.
Jenn:So he is depicted in the show as just one of the characters, but he
Jenn:doesn't really have a distinct name and everything like that, but just
Jenn:know that he's one of those guys.
Jenn:He does make the initial jump, his first combat jump on D Day.
Jenn:He's one of the misdrops.
Jenn:He finds the other three after landing and then they join their
Jenn:own unit three or four days later.
Jenn:He's wounded after the battle of Keraton.
Jenn:He's evacuated to hospital in England.
Jenn:That's where he lost his camera that he brought with him to
Jenn:Normandy, which is too bad.
Jenn:In and September of 1944, he makes another jump for Operation Market
Jenn:Garden, which eventually failed.
Jenn:He's a company that's defending the island.
Jenn:He participates in Operation Pegasus in October of 1944 and After
Jenn:easy company has been relieved.
Jenn:He gets involved in a traffic accident.
Jenn:He fought in the Battle of the Bulge It's him and another man who find and kill the
Jenn:German soldier that shot Walter Gordon.
Jenn:And in January 1945, Taylor shot in the leg and sent to an aid station.
Jenn:That wound was serious and he spent 11 months in the hospital and then
Jenn:he is discharged from the hospital.
Jenn:Army.
Jenn:He marries Elaine in 1945 while still at the rehab hospital.
Jenn:Her dress, which I love is made from Taylor's white silk reserve chute.
Jenn:So I love a couple women did this.
Jenn:They would make their wedding dresses from that white reserve chute.
Jenn:So their second chute is made of that white silk and because
Jenn:silk was difficult to get.
Jenn:during the war.
Jenn:It's one of those ration materials.
Jenn:Women didn't have this material available to them to make their wedding dresses.
Jenn:So she makes her wedding dress from his reserve chute, which
Jenn:I think is just so beautiful.
Scott:I thought it was really cool.
Scott:You called that out in the video.
Jenn:He's discharged in December and he works for the VA.
Jenn:He joins the CIA.
Jenn:He spends 25 years with the CIA so we don't know what he did.
Jenn:They live in Sewell's Point for 30 years.
Jenn:They moved to Orange City in 2010 and then he passes away in
Jenn:2011, 18 days after his wife.
Jenn:So I mentioned that too in the video.
Jenn:So he's just one of those characters that I almost don't know if he's not
Jenn:depicted because of his work with the CIA
Scott:Oh, interesting.
Jenn:he's important and he did some important things that could It could
Jenn:be played by a character, but because of his work with the CIA, it's almost
Jenn:like maybe you shouldn't focus on me and my life just so people aren't
Jenn:digging more into my background.
Jenn:It seems I don't know, I'm just, we have friends that kind of work in that
Jenn:area and it seems the longer they work in that area, the more they pull their
Jenn:social media stuff or their life away.
Jenn:Okay.
Jenn:So I wonder about that.
Jenn:that a little bit.
Jenn:But I just think he's awesome.
Jenn:And we just wanted to remember him.
Jenn:So those are the five men from Easy Company that are in
Jenn:Arlington National Cemetery.
Jenn:So if you wanted to visit them, they are a very easy group of men to visit.
Jenn:You could do it on one day, you could do it as you go Tomb of
Jenn:the Unknown and Robert Kennedy.
Jenn:Those are what people usually see when they go to Arlington.
Jenn:And you can see the five band of brothers as well, which
Jenn:would be relatively easy to do.
Jenn:So it was an honor for us to do it.
Jenn:I think it's awesome to remember them and remember the series and
Jenn:the series, it always goes up and down with its popularity.
Jenn:And I think it, as masters of the air come out, people revisit band of brothers.
Jenn:So it's just was awesome for us to be there.
Scott:Well that brings us to the end of our visit
Scott:. to Arlington National Cemetery and our exploration of the lives of the Easy
Scott:Company soldiers laid to rest there.
Scott:Their bravery and sacrifice during World War II helped shape
Scott:the world we live in today.
Scott:Their stories serve as a powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit
Scott:in the face of unimaginable adversity.
Scott:Before you go, I want to leave you with a thought.
Scott:Easy Company wasn't just a military unit, it was a brotherhood.
Scott:These men fought for each other.
Scott:relied on each other, and formed an enduring bond that transcended war.
Scott:Their unwavering loyalty and commitment to one another is a message
Scott:that continues to resonate today.
Scott:So let's honor their memory, not just by remembering their wartime achievements,
Scott:but also by carrying forward that spirit of camaraderie in our own lives.
Scott:Thank you for listening to the Talk With History podcast, and please reach out
Scott:to us at our website, talkwithhistory.
Scott:com.
Scott:But more importantly, if you know someone else that might enjoy this podcast, shoot
Scott:them a text and tell them to look us up.
Scott:We rely on you, our community, to grow and we appreciate you all every day.
Scott:We'll talk to you next time.