{"id":89834,"date":"2025-08-08T07:40:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T12:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=89834"},"modified":"2025-08-08T07:40:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T12:40:33","slug":"brand-of-bothers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=89834","title":{"rendered":"Brand Of Bothers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>SCENE. It&#8217;s December, 1944.\u00a0 \u00a0Bastogne, Belgium.\u00a0 The men of the 101st Airborne Division are surrounded, defending the vital road junction, as seven German divisions close in.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Men of Company F, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment &#8211; just down the line from the famed &#8220;Easy Company&#8221;, not the same guys at all &#8211; are coming out of their foxholes after a German bombardment.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>PRIVATE JEB RANKIN (a farm boy from Alabama):\u00a0 Hoooo-iiiie, that was something.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>TECH SERGEANT FOURTH CLASS ANDREW &#8220;ANDY&#8221; PILSNER (the platoon radioman):\u00a0 I heard Lieutentant Ratchett in Third Platoon got blown up.\u00a0 (<em>The others shake their heads in that &#8220;glad it wasn&#8217;t me&#8221; manner<\/em>).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>PRIVATE FIRST CLASS GUISEPPE &#8220;JOE&#8221; RANDAZZO (a former streetcar conductor from Southie in Boston):\u00a0 Rattled my fillings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>STAFF SERGEANT WILLIE BUXTON (a Montana rancher turned NCO, and the platoon sergeant):\u00a0 Everyone OK?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>CORPORAL JAMES &#8220;JIMMY&#8221; STEVENS (a former rendering plant worker from Indiana):\u00a0 Crissake.\u00a0 Why do we do this.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>RANDAZZO (Sardonic):\u00a0 To defend democracy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>RANKIN (earnest):\u00a0 To liberate Europe.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>SECOND LIEUTENANT LLOYD MOUNTEBANKE (A Yale Business School graduate who is the platoon leader):\u00a0 That&#8217;s incorrect.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>RANDAZZO: Sir?<\/p>\n<p>MOUNTEBANKE:\u00a0\u00a0<em>This\u00a0<\/em>is why we&#8217;re fighting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I spent more than 20 years caring for patients as an OBGYN. Failing to protect abortion care across every state they live in is a cruel betrayal of the veterans who bravely served and sacrificed for our country. <br><br>They fought for our rights &#8212; but Trump is taking away theirs. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Pt9nXmvw9g\">https:\/\/t.co\/Pt9nXmvw9g<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Kelly Morrison (@KellyMorrisonMN) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KellyMorrisonMN\/status\/1953481199067783542?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 7, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>RANKIN:\u00a0 We&#8217;re sittin&#8217; here thousands of miles from home, so&#8230;people can kill babies, sir?<\/p>\n<p>RANDAZZO:\u00a0<em>Ma&#8217;Donn\u00a0<\/em><em>(crosses self<\/em>).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>MOUNTEBANKE:\u00a0 You heard the woman.\u00a0 \u00a0Carry on.\u00a0 (<em>Exits into the woods as suddenly as he<\/em> appeared)<\/p>\n<p>STEVENS: (<em>Sotto Voce<\/em>) That doesn&#8217;t seem right&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>BUXTON:\u00a0 OK, men, that&#8217;s enough jawing.\u00a0 \u00a0You heard the Lieutenant.\u00a0 We&#8217;re fighting to kill babies. Now get some top cover on those foxholes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>And SCENE<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCENE. It&#8217;s December, 1944.\u00a0 \u00a0Bastogne, Belgium.\u00a0 The men of the 101st Airborne Division are surrounded, defending the vital road junction, as seven German divisions close in.\u00a0 Men of Company F, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment &#8211; just down the line from the famed &#8220;Easy Company&#8221;, not the same guys at all &#8211; are coming out of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[335,20,18],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-89834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-infanticide","category-democrats","category-pc","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89834","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=89834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89835,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89834\/revisions\/89835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}