Free We Who Are Alive and Remain by Marcus Brotherton Page B

the one who made up the joke.

Dewitt Lowrey
    The first night at Toccoa I was put in a tent with another boy. They were still building Camp Toccoa then. Rain was pouring down, and water came right down through our tent, filling the floor. I said, “C’mon, let’s go into town. We’ll come back in the morning.”
    He had been in ROTC in school and said, “No, we can’t do it. That would be AWOL.”
    So we put all our stuff up on our cots and sat on the piles all night. We never did get any sleep.
    The next day we started running Currahee. It didn’t bother me. On the first run—I’ll never forget it—they had ambulances waiting for you. If you couldn’t make it they picked you up, carried you down the hill, and you were discharged. That was the deal: you had to have the stamina to stay in and run it. Either that or find something else to do.
    Once, we were on a forced march going up a hill. James Alley and I were marching together. He said, “Let’s sit down on this log, wait here, and catch the company as they come back down.”
    That sounded like a good idea to me. (It’s a wonder we weren’t washed out for doing this.) We were sitting there just having a good old time when along comes Major William Boyle (of the 517th). He said, “What are you boys doing sitting over there?” We shrugged and tried to answer the best we knew how. He said, “Nothing doing. Fall in behind me!”
    We fell in behind Boyle. He took off up the hill faster than I’ve ever seen—boy, he was really putting us to it. We weren’t marching now, we were running. On the way up the hill we passed our company coming down. We got some funny looks, that’s for sure. We went to the top of the hill, turned around, and ran back down. We passed through the company and kept running straight by. We kept running and ran up another hill. Then another. Finally we looped around and joined up with the end of our company. The major said, “You boys can fall out now, but don’t let me ever catch you doing that again.”
    Later, Lieutenant Dick Winters asked us why we were running behind Major Boyle. We told him. Winters sort of smiled and said, “I bet you boys didn’t know Major Boyle was a cross-country runner.”
    On the march to Atlanta a little dog started following us. He had no collar or identification and must have been a stray, for he kept up with us for several miles. Finally we noticed he was limping. I picked him up and saw that his toenails were worn to the quick and the pads on his paws were sore. I told my buddies, “If y’all will take the stuff in my backpack, I’ll put that dog in my backpack and carry him.” So they did. The dog rode to Atlanta on my back and on to Fort Benning. We named him Draftee. He became our mascot. He was a pretty cute old thing. At Benning, a bunch of nurses had just transferred in. They took one look at him and said, “We’ll take care of him.” So we gave Draftee to the nurses.
    Along with the dog, I carried my machine gun for the whole march. Some guys traded off the heavier weapons, but I figured I had been issued that weapon and might have to use it someday. So I needed to keep my hand on it.
    At Benning we had four day jumps and one night jump. On the first round of jumps, the pilot turned on the green light for us to jump, but the jumpmaster wouldn’t let us jump. We wanted to know why. He said, “Well, if you jump now you’ll land in the Chattahoochee River.” We had to make another circle, come around, and line up for the drop zone again.
    One man ahead of me got in the door and froze. I had my foot on his butt but couldn’t push him out, he was wedged against the door so tight. Other guys tried to push him out. Finally the jumpmaster pushed him out of the way and I jumped. The man went back to Benning, but I don’t think he ever made paratrooper.
    A lot of guys didn’t make the training. When I jumped I was scared. I don’t know about everybody else, but I was scared every time I