their best to stay as low as possible. Just then, Lieutenant Winters came running down the line, pulling men to their feet and shouting,

“Get up! You’re exposed here! Get up! Move forward!”

One by one, the men got to their feet and started running toward Carentan.

As the rest of Easy Company flooded toward him, Balto left the shelter of the plaster-walled shed and made his way to a small wooden gate, kicking it off its rusted hinges. Taking cover behind the corner of another small house, Balto caught sight of two machine guns in a house overlooking the main road; one on the third floor, and one on the bottom floor. Both were clattering away, sending curtain of steel toward the road. Balto hoped that the firing had claimed no lives.

Nearby, another ‘trooper tossed a grenade toward the lower machinegun in hopes of knocking it out, but the grenade fell short and exploded in the cobble street outside. The gunners ignored the blast and kept firing. The unlucky paratrooper turned toward Balto.

“I need grenades! Toss-”

Before the young man could finish his sentence, he was cut down by a rifle shot, and dropped like a bag of rocks.

“Sniper!” Balto shouted to his comrades advancing from behind him, “One o’clock!” The men took cover, and Balto leaned out around the corner of the house. He immediately spotted the shooter, a German rifleman lying on what looked to be a fire escape for the adjacent warehouse. He raised his M1 and pumped the trigger twice. The German slumped over his rifle and didn’t move.

Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Balto pulled a grenade from his belt and ran toward the lower machine gun, being careful to stay out of sight until the last moment. A few steps away from the window, he pulled the pin from the grenade. One…two…three… He tossed the grenade, and it arched into the window. Four… The gunners cried out in alarm. Five! And the grenade went off.

Signaling ‘all clear’ to his comrades, Balto swung up his M1 and dashed across the street and up the fire escape. The German rifleman was indeed dead, but Balto was more intent on inspecting his rifle. Suddenly, Lieutenant Winters was shouting at him from below.

“Take out those windows, Balto!”

“Yes sir!” he replied, lifting his rifle. Aiming at the bay windows just below the roofline, Balto emptied his rifle and was reloading when the horrid sound of incoming artillery reached his ears. As each round screeched overhead, it reminded him of a passing freight train, except in this case the train was barreling down on the town of Carentan.

“They’ve got us zeroed!” Winters shouted to the men still in the street below, “Take cover! Find some cover!” The men didn’t need to be told twice. Most scattered into nearby buildings while some pressed themselves against any sturdy wall they could find and stayed there. Balto, in the meantime, pounded down the stairs and made his way to one of the outlying houses on the far side of town. Along the way, most of his comrades reported ‘all clear.’ It seemed as though there was no one remaining to oppose them. Even so, Balto entered the house with his rifle at the ready. Behind him, one of Easy’s two-man machinegun crews entered close behind. Finding no one on the first level, the threesome moved to the upper floor. Balto was relieved to find only empty rooms. As he was about to turn and descend the stairs, he happened to catch sight of retreating grey-clad soldiers out an open window.

“Krauts!” he shouted, running to the window and flinging it wide open. Resting his rifle on the window sill, he began to pick off the retreating Germans just as the machine gun crew set up looking out the window next to him. The steady pounding of the .30 caliber MG sent a wall of lead raining down on the Germans, already bogged down in the nearby swamps. When the firing finally ceased, not a single German moved in the swamp.

Later that day, while the rest of the company stretched out to relax in the town square, Balto took out a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and began to write….

Chapter Four

A First Time for Everything

18 June, 1944

Jenna sighed as she stepped off the bus a little under a mile from her house. On any other Friday, she and Balto would walk side by side down the dirt road, exchanging plans for the weekend, but this week, like so many before, she walked home alone. School was out for the summer, but her thoughts centered on Balto.

The first year since Balto’s departure had passed so quickly, but not without pain. Every day, her heart ached to know that she would not see Balto’s smiling face, nor embrace his tall lean figure. Few at school seemed to notice his absence; only her teachers saw the sorrow hidden in her eyes. It was only at the Christmas dance that Jenna had finally realized that she was the only girl without a date. The rest were too young for service, and with a senior class of only 43, not counting Balto, the rest remained at home. Her friends Dixie and Sylvia had tried to comfort her as she sat watching everyone else dance that evening, but to little avail. Kaltag drove her home, promising her that Balto would pull through for her.

Now as she neared her driveway she spotted Doc, the mailman, coming from the opposite direction. The wise old St. Bernard had served as a medical corpsman in the Great War, and when he returned to the civilian world, his nickname stuck.

“It’s good to see you again, Doc,” Jenna said warmly.

“And you as well, Miss Parker,” Doc replied, doffing his hat to her as they met at the mailbox.

“Any thing for me today?”

Doc opened the pouch slung over his shoulder, plucked a few sealed envelopes out of the midst and closing the cover again. Having been in the postal service for twenty years, Doc never had to replace a ‘plucked’ envelope into his sack. ‘After twenty years, I ought to be doing something right,’ he often reasoned with laughter.

“Let’s see…” he said, flipping through the envelopes, “One for your mother, two business letters for your father, something from your grandmother, and…” He held up the last one with a smile. “…A letter for you, from Private First Class Balto Tyrell.” He held out the letter, and Jenna hugged him gratefully.

“Thanks, Doc,” she said, turning toward her house.

“Anytime, Miss Parker,” he replied, waving as he continued down the road.

When Jenna entered her home, she was not surprised to find it empty, relieved rather. She set the mail on the kitchen table, and took her letter with her to her room. After replacing her school books on the top shelf of her bookcase, where they would remain for the next two months, she lay on her bed, rolled onto her stomach, opened the letter, and began to read.

My Dearest Jenna,

It is so wonderful to here from you, now more than ever. It seems that each day is longer than the rest. Will I ever get home to you? I hope that you are doing alright at home, and I wish I was with you…

Two pages later, Jenna smiled and kissed his signature. Pulling open the bottom drawer of her bed stand, she carefully placed the letter on top off the many others already resting safely inside. Pulling open the top drawer, she removed a sheet of paper and a pencil…

17 September, 1944

Across the sea, the sun shone down upon an advancing column of tanks and trucks advancing along a road connecting the Dutch towns of Eindhoven and Venghel. American paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division rode ‘topside’ on several British-manned Sherman tanks. Aside from the grinding of gears and tank tracks, the surrounding countryside was quiet. Birds flew high overhead, seemingly trying to compete with the giant man-made birds that soared thousands of feet above them.

Men ridding the tanks chatted casually, trying to out-impress each other with wild tales of emerging victorious after battling hundreds of Germans alone.

Thank God for Shermans, Balto thought, patting the steely beast’s turret. Easy Company, aided by a few British Sherman tanks, was moving toward Arnhem, where British paratroopers were being compressed into an ever-shrinking pocket of resistance. The first step toward Arnhem was just down the road.

As the tanks rumbled down the road with the men of Easy Company riding on top, the town came slowly into view. To Balto and the others, it resembled every town they’d assaulted and taken in the last three months, and they expected the same result.

Just then, the small column of tanks and men ground to a halt, and a man carrying binoculars dashed out from among the rest of the troops. The men of Easy lucky enough to be riding atop the Shermans watched in confusion as the sergeant ran out and finally stopped about forty yards ahead, scanning the town with his binoculars.

“What the heck’s he doing?” one of the tankers asked, peering through the sun’s glare at the sergeant.

“I don’t know,” one of the men of Easy replied, turning to Balto, “Hey Balto, get his attention.”

Balto nodded, and cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Hey sergeant,” he said.

The sergeant lowered his binoculars and half turned toward them before the rifle round struck him in the chest.

The men riding on the tanks leapt down to the ground as the cry for a medic was echoed down the column. As he scanned the woods running parallel to the road, Balto sighted something moving swiftly through the trees.

“Halftrack!” he shouted, raising his rifle.

Out of the woods rushed a German personnel carrier, a pair of wheels in the front, a pair of tracks similar to those of a tank in the back. As it sped along the tree line, its occupants fired their rifles and submachine guns toward the convoy. Most of the rounds bounced harmlessly off the thick metal sides of the Sherman tanks. As the last of the men found safety behind the Shermans, the lead