Company of heroes: Don Malarkey served not for acclaim, but we owe it nonetheless

Don Malarkey died this weekend.

It had been more than 70 years since German soldiers tried to kill him.

He managed to avoid death throughout the war, despite his "Easy Company" seeing some of the worst fighting in Europe.  

Malarkey was among those who served in a company of heroes who had his -- and their -- experiences immortalized in the book by Stephen Ambrose and then the HBO miniseries both titled "Band of Brothers."

And though his family reports that the survivors guilt and grief of seeing his friends die followed him home, he still managed to push on and live a full life, raise a family, and even return to Europe years later to share some of his paratrooper company's exploits.

The many stories of what E-Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Division, 101st Airborne, accomplished from D-Day through the Battle of the Bulge serve as both lore and training manual material.

These men did it all, from dropping from the sky ahead of the Allied-advance into Normandy, to staving off certain death after being surrounded in the dead of a brutal winter on the wooded edge of Bastogne, France. They and others held back crucial portions of Hitler's western advance that could have turned the war the other way.

Malarkey is singled out only in death, at the age of 96, because prior to that he probably wouldn't have allowed it. He was one man among many who served. We know so only from the book and from the show, but what Donald Malarkey and the men who served with him did, saw and endured encapsulates in a unique way why theirs is still called the "Greatest Generation."

And while theirs is just one story among an anthology still being written today by those who serve, it is a chapter we return to again and again, not to romanticize but to remark at.

It's why we salute the flag. It's why we stand. It's why we continue to support the mission in every way possible, for all the Don Malarkeys who come home and find a way to live out their days in peace into their 90s, and more importantly, for those who don't.

"Currahee!" was the rally cry of the first swath of E-Company -- Toccoa men -- who trained together at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, prior to the war. To get in fighting shape, they ran up and down Currahee Mountain.

It's a crucial part of the miniseries; its where the men first forge their bonds. We can't know how much of that was dramatized for TV, but for what it's worth, raise a pint next time you hold one and give a "Currahee!" to Don and to those who went before him.

Perhaps in sharing publicly what was personal to them we can honor the sacrifices we might never know they made.

Published in Editorials on October 1, 2017 10:18 PM