Free A Company of Heroes by Marcus Brotherton

think. He went to some kind of ministry school, one of these fringe religions, and became some kind of minister, perhaps working with other alcoholics, I’m not quite sure. The religion wasn’t enough to save him. The substances had pulled him down so far that he was never really able to climb back out. There were a lot of people at his funeral, though, maybe a hundred and fifty friends of his, so he was able to connect with people on a good level to some extent during his last few years. He died January 7, 1985.
    It’s not easy being the child of an alcoholic. In my own life I’ve tried hard to break the cycle of addictions. I never drank much, but when my oldest daughter reached high school, I quit drinking altogether. It wasn’t like I ever drank much anyway: a six-pack of beer could sit in my fridge untouched for months. But I wanted her to see that alcohol didn’t automatically need to be part of every social gathering. If I went to a party, I didn’t need to drink to have a good time. That’s what I wanted to show her—to lead my family from the front. Seven or eight years went by where I didn’t drink at all. Occasionally I’ll have a beer now at dinner, but that’s it.

Remembering George L. Potter Jr.
    In the early 1990s I was a representative for Honeywell as a test engineer. I was commuting to Florida quite frequently at the time, almost on a weekly basis, and reading a lot. I had seen Band of Brothers on the bookshelf, but I didn’t know what unit Dad was in at the time. I had thumbed through the book but hadn’t seen any pictures of Dad, and his name wasn’t listed in the index, so I didn’t buy it.
    A few years later, in the summer of 1997, my brother Tim was in an army surplus store in Connecticut where he lives. He talked to the store owner about our dad being a paratrooper, and the guy asked him what unit he was in. When Tim said, “Easy Company, 506th,” the guy recommended reading Band of Brothers . Tim went and bought the book, read it, and told me I needed to get it, so that’s when I bought it and read it cover to cover.
    It was well worth the read. I recognized many of the stories Dad told us through the years. I was able to call Stephen Ambrose and we talked for some time. He put me in touch with Dick Winters, E Company’s commander, who gave me some other stories about my dad. I called and wrote other survivors of E Company, and have developed a good relationship with many of them. We’ve been invited to their reunions and have attended several. It’s been very good to go and connect with these men.
    It’s true, Dad led a complicated life. When he wasn’t drinking, he could be a great father. I know he was always proud of his service. He volunteered, stepped up and did what needed to be done. That’s how I’d want people to remember George L. Potter Jr.

PART II
    NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS
    THE BACKBONE OF THE ARMY

6
    GORDON CARSON
    Interview with Gary Carson, son
     
     
     
    My father’s story is inextricably linked with my mother’s. Stephen Ambrose described her at the end of Band of Brothers with one simple line: “Carson fed an educated, beautiful, sophisticated Polish blond.” 10
    That one line has raised questions over the years. Who was this Polish blond? Why was my father feeding her? And what was the mystery behind how they met and married?
    Here’s how the story unfolds.

The Polish Blond
    My mother was a blue-eyed dynamo who became a wife, widow, smuggler, slave, parent, and killer all before she turned twenty-three. Her name was Antonia Puchalska. Friends called her Toni.
    When Toni was seventeen, she lived with her parents in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, right when the city was bombed by the Germans. Imag-ine it: Here was this pretty teenage girl, intelligent, sensitive, and full of dreams. One morning as she was getting ready to walk to school, bombs started falling out of the sky. Her childhood and young adulthood stopped at this point. It was September