{"id":6837,"date":"2009-12-02T13:05:05","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T18:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=6837"},"modified":"2009-12-02T12:27:32","modified_gmt":"2009-12-02T17:27:32","slug":"no-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=6837","title":{"rendered":"No Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the book and miniseries Band of Brothers<\/em>, “Easy ” Company (E Company\/506th Airborne Infantry Regiment) is led through Normandy and Operation Market-Garden (the invasion of the Netherlands) by Dick Winters – the protagonist and real-life hero of the story.\u00a0\u00a0 After Market-Garden, Winters is promoted to battalion executive officer; he’s replaced by another excellent officer, who is shot and gravely wounded by a nervous sentry.\u00a0 That officer, in turn, is replaced by a Lieutenant Dike.<\/p>\n

In the book (and, as narrated in the movie by Dike’s first sergeant, Litman, in the miniseries), it’s revealed that “Lt. Dike’s biggest problem wasn’t that he made bad decisions.\u00a0 It’s that he made no decisions at all”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the Battle of the Bulge, at the\u00a0defense of Bastogne, the competence of his platoon leaders and NCOs – the sergeants and corporals who do most of the moment-by-moment leadership – saved the company.<\/p>\n

But after the Bulge, during the long series of counterattacks to drive the Germans back out of Belgium, Dike’s inadequacy as a combat leader led to a crisis.\u00a0 In a counterattack to retake the town of Foy, Belgium, Dike’s led the company into an exposed positi0n, halfway between the shelter of the woods and the town full of Germans.\u00a0 Raked by machine gun fire, pummeled by concealed artillery, and needled by snipers concealed in the town ahead who alone kill or wound six of the soldiers, the company was in a bad positi0n; to retreat would lead the company back across open ground and <\/em>lead to needing to do the whole thing over again.\u00a0 To advance would involve casualties and a very tough fight with some very skilled German defenders.\u00a0 And to stay in place involved getting shot or blown up at the Germans’ leisure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dike made one decision – an ineffective half-measure sending a platoon on a fruitless, pointless flanking maneuver that led to casualties and nothing much else – and then froze up.\u00a0 Winters, watching from not far behind, ordered Lieutentant Speirs, the aggressive, Scottish-born platoon leader who would carry the company through the rest of the war, to take the company.\u00a0 He made the tough but instant decision; attack.\u00a0 Get into the town.\u00a0 Root the Germans out and get the battle over.<\/p>\n

It cost casualties – but fewer than the company lost as it floundered about in the field, waiting for a definitive decision.\u00a0 It was a tough call, one that could have ended in disaster to be sure.\u00a0 But it carried the day.<\/p>\n

I have no idea whatsoever what prompted me to think of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the book and miniseries Band of Brothers, “Easy ” Company (E Company\/506th Airborne Infantry Regiment) is led through Normandy and Operation Market-Garden (the invasion of the Netherlands) by Dick Winters – the protagonist and real-life hero of the story.\u00a0\u00a0 After Market-Garden, Winters is promoted to battalion executive officer; he’s replaced by another excellent officer, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-and-its-making","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6837"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6840,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6837\/revisions\/6840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}