<p>I too have been watching Ken Burns documentary with great interest… I think it has given me a better appreciation for what my father went through…</p>
<p>My dad enlisted in the army in 1936. After the war started he went through parachute training at Ft. Benning and in 1943 went overseas from Ft. Bragg with the 504th PIR (those devils in baggy pants) of the 82nd Airborne. From North Africa he made the night combat jump at Gela Sicily… That jump resulted in one of the worst friendly fire incidents in U.S. Army history. More than 400 paratroopers were shot from the skies by their own men… From there the 82nd fought its way through Sicily… He then made another combat jump with the 504th behind the enemy lines at Salerno and then later made the assault at Anzio… After nine months of combat he was sent back stateside to be an instructor at TPS. </p>
<p>He never really talked much about what he had seen… He did relate a few stories though… and they stick in my mind… He told me about the jump at Gela… How as they were getting ready to board the planes, Colonel Reuben Tucker the regimental commander (later the Commandant of Cadets at The Citadel), drove down the flight line in his jeep and told the men its open season on krauts, boys… How he stepped out of the plane into the darkness, wondering were he would land… Seeing dead paratroopers being brought down from the mountains in Italy on the backs of mules… He also talked about his battalion being surrounded by the Germans after the jump at Salerno… He said while they were on a hill near Altavilla, Colonel Tucker told the men the only way they were leaving that hill was if they fought their way off or were carried off dead! Talk about seriously scary stuff… It shows you why war makes all other forms of human endeavor pale in comparison… Anyway my dad stayed in the army and later fought in Korea and eventually retired as an SFC in 1965. He definitely had a hard edge that Im sure was a result of his wartime experiences. He passed away in 1991…</p>