I managed to salute him. I remember Sobel looking at me for the longest time. Then he says, “One of the best soldiers in the goddam company, and look at you—just look at you.” I didn’t want anybody to look at me. He shamed me. He just flat shamed me. That may have been one of the reasons I never got that way again.
Shifty Powers
Captain Sobel, our company commander—I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about him. Real hard training there. The thought was that if we went to war with Captain Sobel, he was going to get a lot of us killed because he just didn’t know that much about tactics. But over the years I’ve thought about Sobel more and I’ve realized that he’s responsible for making Easy Company such a good company. He trained us well. Anything he’d ask you to do, he’d do it—I always admired that about him.
Here’s a story about Popeye: While we were in Toccoa, Captain Sobel told us, “Anybody who makes expert rifleman gets a three-day pass.” Me and one other guy, Buck Taylor, made expert. Well, Toccoa, Georgia, is three states away from Virginia, where I lived. Popeye and I were good friends by then. He asked, “You going home, Shifty?”
“Nah,” I said, “I don’t have enough money.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Popeye said. He got one of those steel helmets and walked through the barracks giving a big talk: “Shifty’s got three days off and doesn’t have enough money to get home. Everybody chip in a bit. Here—I’m going to start it with five dollars.” He placed a bill in the helmet. Everybody else threw in a dollar or fifty cents, whatever they had. Popeye handed it to me to count. “How much money you got in there, Shifty? You got enough?”
“Yeah,” I said. “In fact, I’ve got a little bit left over.”
Popeye grinned. “Then give me my damn five dollars back.”
So I gave him back his five dollars [laughs].
Buck Taylor
Toccoa was tough. Captain Sobel wanted his boys to be the best. He really drove us to do a good job. Sobel was disliked by some of the enlisted men for that reason, but I never had a problem with him for pushing us hard. I appreciate it now.
It’s true, one time at Fort Benning I got very annoyed with Captain Sobel. To explain: Back in early 1942, before I enlisted, I had gone to a sorority club meeting one evening to pick up a girl I had a date with. Instead of one girl meeting me, three or four girls jumped in my car—none of whom was my date. That was fine with me because one of the girls who jumped in, Elaine, was a gorgeous brunette and I thought, Boy, she’s better than the one I was going to meet. So I took all the girls home and Elaine was the last one I dropped off. That was the start of it all. She was in high school still; I had just graduated. We dated pretty heavily from then on.
Anyway, when I was at Benning we had all been given three-day passes after our jumps. I had made arrangements with Elaine to spend time with her that weekend. She worked in Philadelphia but was able to get a train ticket to meet me down in Jacksonville. Everything was set. But on Saturday morning something irked Sobel and all passes were canceled. I thought, Gee, what am I going to do? Here’s a young girl on the train all by herself coming down to Jacksonville with nobody to meet her. There was no way of getting word to the bus station to explain what had happened.
So I started figuring out a plan. I had already gotten my pass earlier on Saturday morning before Sobel canceled them. I thought, Heck, the worst thing they can do is bust me. So I went AWOL and took the bus to Jacksonville anyway, met Elaine, and we had a great weekend together. Carwood Lipton was married, his wife was in North Carolina, and he had made similar arrangements to spend the three days with her. I think Carwood skipped out of camp same as me.
We never heard a word from Sobel.
Elaine and I were married right after the war. That was the first important thing I did
Shifty Powers
Captain Sobel, our company commander—I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about him. Real hard training there. The thought was that if we went to war with Captain Sobel, he was going to get a lot of us killed because he just didn’t know that much about tactics. But over the years I’ve thought about Sobel more and I’ve realized that he’s responsible for making Easy Company such a good company. He trained us well. Anything he’d ask you to do, he’d do it—I always admired that about him.
Here’s a story about Popeye: While we were in Toccoa, Captain Sobel told us, “Anybody who makes expert rifleman gets a three-day pass.” Me and one other guy, Buck Taylor, made expert. Well, Toccoa, Georgia, is three states away from Virginia, where I lived. Popeye and I were good friends by then. He asked, “You going home, Shifty?”
“Nah,” I said, “I don’t have enough money.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Popeye said. He got one of those steel helmets and walked through the barracks giving a big talk: “Shifty’s got three days off and doesn’t have enough money to get home. Everybody chip in a bit. Here—I’m going to start it with five dollars.” He placed a bill in the helmet. Everybody else threw in a dollar or fifty cents, whatever they had. Popeye handed it to me to count. “How much money you got in there, Shifty? You got enough?”
“Yeah,” I said. “In fact, I’ve got a little bit left over.”
Popeye grinned. “Then give me my damn five dollars back.”
So I gave him back his five dollars [laughs].
Buck Taylor
Toccoa was tough. Captain Sobel wanted his boys to be the best. He really drove us to do a good job. Sobel was disliked by some of the enlisted men for that reason, but I never had a problem with him for pushing us hard. I appreciate it now.
It’s true, one time at Fort Benning I got very annoyed with Captain Sobel. To explain: Back in early 1942, before I enlisted, I had gone to a sorority club meeting one evening to pick up a girl I had a date with. Instead of one girl meeting me, three or four girls jumped in my car—none of whom was my date. That was fine with me because one of the girls who jumped in, Elaine, was a gorgeous brunette and I thought, Boy, she’s better than the one I was going to meet. So I took all the girls home and Elaine was the last one I dropped off. That was the start of it all. She was in high school still; I had just graduated. We dated pretty heavily from then on.
Anyway, when I was at Benning we had all been given three-day passes after our jumps. I had made arrangements with Elaine to spend time with her that weekend. She worked in Philadelphia but was able to get a train ticket to meet me down in Jacksonville. Everything was set. But on Saturday morning something irked Sobel and all passes were canceled. I thought, Gee, what am I going to do? Here’s a young girl on the train all by herself coming down to Jacksonville with nobody to meet her. There was no way of getting word to the bus station to explain what had happened.
So I started figuring out a plan. I had already gotten my pass earlier on Saturday morning before Sobel canceled them. I thought, Heck, the worst thing they can do is bust me. So I went AWOL and took the bus to Jacksonville anyway, met Elaine, and we had a great weekend together. Carwood Lipton was married, his wife was in North Carolina, and he had made similar arrangements to spend the three days with her. I think Carwood skipped out of camp same as me.
We never heard a word from Sobel.
Elaine and I were married right after the war. That was the first important thing I did
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