Recap / Band Of Brothers S 1 E 1 Currahee

Episode 1 – Currahee:

George Luz: (reading Col. Sink's letter) "Soldiers of the Regiment! Tonight is the night of nights. Today, as you read this, you are en route to the great adventure for which you have trained for over two years."

Bill Guarnere: So that's why they gave us ice cream.

"Currahee" is the first episode of Band of Brothers. The POV is shared between Easy Company's resident Drill Sergeant Nasty Captain Herbert Sobel and his second in command, 1st Lt. Richard Winters. Sobel drills the new privates ruthlessly and without mercy. But it soon becomes apparent that, however effective a drill sergeant he is, he's completely incompetent out in the field. The men of Easy Company realise the possible outcomes of having Sobel as their commanding officer in their inevitable jump into Normandy and opt to do something about it. Sobel's authority is undermined even further when he attempts to punish the more popular Winters.

The episode's title refers to the mountain near the training camp, featuring a 3-mile run to the top and 3 miles back.

"Your troping privileges have been revoked:"

• Actually Pretty Funny: When the old English man on the bike makes his "you've captured me" joke, Winters cracks a smile.
• Advertised Extra: Simon Pegg has just a few minutes of screen time, and he's mostly in the background.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Non-fatal example. Sobel is portrayed as a dick, but it's made clear that losing Easy Company devastates him.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Winters is calling Compton out for betting with money when he played craps with those under his command, Compton is dismissive of the harm it could lead to. Winters then asks, "What if you'd won?" Being their leader but owed money to would break down their moral and respect for him. After the crap they went through under Sobel, Winters knows they need absolute faith and trust in their officers to not abuse the power their authority grants them. Compton has no response.
• Artistic Licence – History:
  • Minor example. Private David Webster can be seen in group shots with the rest of Easy Company. In reality, he trained with Fox Company and jumped into Normandy with them, not transferring to Easy Company until afterwards. What makes this odd is that there was a scripted scene for a later episode showing Webster transferring.
  • Sobel actually made up two offenses by Winters. The first one was the one seen in the episode, and in real life, Strayer set aside the punishment. Sobel made up a second one after this, which was what resulted in Winters being reassigned to the mess hall. The events were likely compressed together for brevity.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Winters sneaks into their test jumps in England a compass to measure the direction of the flight and using just his watch to measure time, he and Meehan track the landing point they are testing at. From there, they use a pencil on a string to make a circle and see where this distance matches to in Europe. They realize they will be jumping into Normandy before they are officially told.
• Bad Boss: While the men of Easy Company would go on to credit Sobel for preparing them for the harsh conditions of war, he is nevertheless generally this. He is petty, authoritarian and overly punitive, latching onto minor infractions and constantly imposing the maximum possible penalty regardless of the nature of the offense (to the point where "your weekend pass is revoked!" might as well be his Catchphrase); he is impossible to please; he harshly punishes the collective for the minor sins of the few; he clearly places his own dreams of glory over the overall welfare of the company; is disinterested in the men and clearly views them as expendable, failing to build trust, unit cohesion or any kind of rapport with them and causing overall morale to plummet even as they excel on the surface; he is intolerant of advice from others; he is envious, insecure and feels threatened by the abilities of his subordinates, leading him to find ways of lashing out at them; and, most importantly, turns out to be utterly incompetent at his actual job at leading them in the field with a strong tactical understanding so they come back alive with the mission accomplished as he is not simply a training officer, he is a company commander; he's not there just to get the men into shape for combat, he's there to lead them into it, which requires more than simply bullying and punishing them.
• Blatant Lies: Sobel tries to punish Winters for supposedly not inspecting the latrines at an earlier appointed time, saying he phoned ahead and sent a runner to inform him. There was no runner and Winters didn't have a phone.
• Boot Camp Episode: The episode covers East Company's jump training at Camp Toccoa.
• Broken Ace: Sobel is a tough drill instructor who produces the best the army can offer – but he's also incompetent in the field.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: During his dressing down, Col. Sink makes it clear to the Easy Company mutineers that military law dictates that he should be having them all sentenced to death. However, because they are so close to the D-Day invasion, he has no choice but to spare them so they can participate.
• Chekhov's Gun: Guarnere comments that while he respects Winters, he has doubts about the man's willingness to fight: "I don't want no Quaker doin' my fighting for me." This will be a source of some tension between the two in the next episode.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Thanks to a Freeze-Frame Bonus, Blithe and Webster can be seen in the backgrounds of the big group scenes. They have no lines in this but will get featured in later episodes.
• Chekhov's Skill: During the party, Luz does an impression of Sobel to entertain Toye. Later on in England, he does one of Major Horton to trick Sobel into cutting a fence. Doubles as a Chekhov's Gag.
• Comically Missing the Point: Nixon when Winters gets a letter that he's to be court-martialed: "He misspelled court-martial."
• Cultural Posturing: Perconte dismisses the spaghetti lunch the company is served as "Army noodles with ketchup" and chides fellow Italian-American Guarnere for accepting it without complaint.
• Decoy Protagonist: Of the episode, at least. We're given Sobel's perspective predominantly through roughly the first half or so, with Winters being increasingly significant but not dominant. Then Sobel gets transferred before the Normandy landings, and Winters becomes the new POV character for the remainder of the episode.
• Didn't Think This Through: Sobel punishes Winters for a minor but significant infraction, claiming that he sent Winters amended orders that Winters subsequently failed to obey (whether or not Sobel did is ambiguous, but he claims to have telephoned Winters at his lodgings — which had no phone — and sent a runner to inform Winters, who supposedly never found him, hinting that he's actually framing Winters). He expects that Winters will suck it up and accept the punishment of being confined to base, since Winters spends his leave days there anyway. He is therefore thrown when Winters demands a trial by court-martial instead — in which Sobel will have to actually prove that he contacted Winters with amended orders in such a way that Winters demonstrably received them (and if he didn't, then manufacturing evidence is legally perjury), the whole thing will suck up energy and resources when everyone's preparing to invade Europe, and will further undermine him with both his superiors and the men.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Sobel's attempts to cut down Winters only result in his authority being undermined even further – and as a result, he looks worse to his superiors.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Sobel's specialty
  • In his first scene, Sobel revokes the weekend privileges for: Perconte's trousers being creased (implying he bloused them, which he is not allowed to do until he becomes an official paratrooper), Liebgott apparently having a rusty bayonet, Malarkey's weapon being in subpar condition, and Lipton for having a loose thread on his uniform. He then revokes everyone else's weekend passes just For the Evulz.
  • Later on, he revokes Nixon's because when he asked what the can of peaches Parks was stashing was, the latter didn't answer "Army Property".
• Double Entendre: A non-sexual version during the boat ride to England.
  Guarnere: [Sobel]'s a son of Abraham.
  Liebgott: He's what?
  Guarnere: He's a Jew.
  Liebgott: (gets up from his cot and stands about an inch Guarnere) I'm a Jew.
  Guarnere: Congratulations. Get your nose outta my face.^note He's telling him not to stand so close to him and making a crack about the stereotype of Jews having large noses
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: The episode spends a good amount of time examining this very trope. Sobel is a hardass who abuses his recruits. But at the same time, the rest of them don't try to get him removed until it's apparent that he's ineffective in the field, rather than his treatment of them. The real men of Easy Company do credit Sobel's training with making them the best – and say that he did give them someone to unite against. On the flip side, Sobel punishes the men for minor infractions and invents offences out of sheer pettiness – which proves unlucky for him when his men try to embarrass him. It is also heavily suggested that, while this trope might have some value for training purposes, this is not a good way for a commander who will have to actually lead men in the field to conduct himself, as it damages unit morale (even before his NCOs outright mutiny, Sobel's junior officers are holding private meetings among themselves where they are raising their concerns this very problem) and makes it incredibly likely that the commander in question will face the risk of a Friendly Fire "accident". Indeed, several men openly suggest that they have every intention of fragging Sobel if they should ever get a chance in the field.
• Driven to Suicide: In the opening interviews, one veteran says that three men in his town committed suicide because they were marked 4-F and couldn't participate in the war.
• Easily Forgiven: Downplayed when the Easy Company NCOs mutiny, they acknowledge they could be court-martialed and shot. Sink furiously chews them out and demotes several of them, but he also sees the reason behind their actions and transfers Sobel out of Easy Company. It's also noted to be at least partly out of pragmatism, since he can't very well go around trying and shooting trained NCOs on shaky grounds mere months before the invasion of Normandy.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Sobel: "You people are at a position of attention!"
  • Winters's is him being the first to the top of the hill and stopping there to encourage the rest of the men to keep running.
  • Carwood Lipton's is trying to rally the rest of the men to do the Currahee run when they're still reeling from Sobel revoking their passes.
  • Joe Liebgott's is proudly informing Guarnere that he's Jewish and taking offence when he makes an anti-Semitic comment.
  • George Luz does an uncanny impression of Major Horton to mess with Sobel.
  • Buck Compton is getting warned by Winters not to get too close with the men, after having spent some time gambling with them.
    • Winters is also trying to get him to be A Father to His Men rather than trying to be on the same level as them. He tells Compton that he should never put himself in a position to take anything from the men.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • Sobel is ordered to promote Winters; he responds by placing him in charge of KP. The irony is that Sobel is told to pin the bars on Winters as a compliment, because his CO thinks Sobel is the kind of officer that Winters should look up to. Sobel misses this point completely. Also, before delivering the promotion he makes a rather spiteful point of chewing Winters and the other officers out for various petty infractions committed by the men, only to promote Winters behind the barracks out of view of everyone, thus cheapening any sense of accomplishment he might have felt.
  • After the men embarrass him, Sobel attempts to take it out on Winters by inventing an offence he committed. However, rather than taking the punishment, Winters requests a court-martial - which ends up undermining Sobel's authority even more.
  • Sgt. Evans gets a moment of this; when delivering the official reprimand to Winters, he makes a point of parking right in the middle of a basketball game some of the off-duty men are having rather than a few feet before or after it.
• Foil: Sobel and Winters. Sobel is petty, bullying and insecure, Winters is respectful, decent and confident. Sobel bullies and degrades the men to impose his authority, Winters gains his by earning their respect and trust by working with them through their training, encouraging the men to succeed. Sobel is a posturing Glory Hound who turns out to be incompetent in the field, Winters is a naturally-talented soldier who is humble and modest. Sobel needs to read the names of every soldier to identify them, while Winters is on good enough terms with Easy Company he recognizes Bull's voice from behind.
• Foreshadowing: Sobel's attempt to unjustly punish Winters on what are heavily implied to be false grounds is hinted at on two separate occasions throughout the episode:
  • One of the infractions Sobel uses to punish Easy Company at the beginning is Perconte having bloused his trouser legs like a paratrooper despite having not yet completed training, and thus having no right to do so. When the men are grousing afterwards they turn on Perconte, who furiously dares any man present to check his pants and see whether or not they're creased. While Perconte likely was guilty, it's nevertheless suggested is that Sobel is willing to punish his men on questionable grounds and use the fact that he's the officer to get away with it without being challenged.
  • This impression is strengthened when, after the march, Sobel orders Winters to present him with six men, the infractions they have committed, and his recommended punishments. When Winters asks what infractions he's supposed to be punishing them for, Sobel merely snaps "Find some!"
• Friendship Moment:
  • A soldier is ordered to run back up Currahee on his own in full gear. It cuts to him doing so, but the some of the men are shown doing it with him out of solidarity.
  • Despite having been assigned to the mess hall, Winters joins the men on the post-spaghetti run up Currahee to show solidarity with them.
  • Martin reveals he's been promoted to sergeant, and Perconte sincerely congratulates him. Halfway through chewing out Perconte for being disrespectful, Martin starts laughing and tells him he's only kidding.
  • After Guarnere discovers his brother died, Martin gives his condolences and says "I'll see you on the other side" right before they jump.
• Funny Background Event: In the midst of Sobel's Humiliation Conga, we can see several soldiers attempting to round up all the animals that got out when the fence was cut.
• Genghis Gambit: Subverted. Nixon initially thinks this is Sobel's goal with his treatment of Easy Company, noting that every man would "double-time Currahee just to piss in [his] morning coffee". However, by the time they get to England, it's clear that Sobel is really just a petty bully who loves lording his power as CO.
• The Ghost: Private Parks, who's ordered to be gotten rid of when Sobel finds a can of peaches in his foot locker.
• Gone Horribly Right: Sobel's sadistic training does churn out one of the best units in the Army. When faced with mutiny from Winters and the NCOs, Colonel Sink finds the best way to save face is to reassign Sobel to a jump training school, as he is clearly better suited as an instructor rather than a field commander.
• Grammar Correction Gag: Nixon when Winters gets a letter that he's to be court-martialed: "He misspelled court-martial."
• Green-Eyed Monster: Sobel is clearly seething with jealousy and deeply threatened over Winters' natural ability as a soldier and the bond he has with the men, both things he lacks.
• Hey, You!: Sobel doesn't bother to remember the names of his men, having to ask or check their name tags to identify them. When told to leave three of them on the ground during a training exercise, he points at "You, you, you" (with his firearm, no less).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Sobel's attempt to sabotage Winters by charging him with a made-up offence just so that he could be kept from the D-Day invasion indirectly results in Sink transferring Sobel out of the company, where only he misses the jump.
• Holding in Laughter: Sobel's platoon can barely stifle their laughing while Luz impersonates a superior officer to prank Sobel.
• Honor Before Reason: A variation. Winters requests a court-martial rather than taking Sobel's punishment – because taking the punishment would mean admitting that he had disobeyed a direct order from his commanding officer, something Winters would never do.
  • In Real Life, Winters only did this after the second time Sobel wrote him up on a trumped up charge: Winters understood that Sobel was trying to destroy him due to his popularity with the men, and forced the point when he requested court martial. As shown in the series, Sobel's Oh, Crap! reaction was entirely real: he expected Winters to acquiesce without a battle and had no plan for an actual court martial.
• Hope Spot: Invoked by Sobel. He tells the men they'll have a light day of study, and gets Winters to serve a special meal for them. While they're eating, he barges in and tells them they'll be running up Currahee – knowing it'll be hard going, since they've just eaten.
• How We Got Here: The episode opens right before they are about to jump, then flashes back to the Toccoa training camp.
• Humiliation Conga: Sobel gets the men lost in the field. They prank him by having Luz imitate Major Horton's voice, telling Sobel to cut someone's barbed wire fence. This exposes Sobel's bad navigation skills and humiliates him. Things aren't helped when Winters undermines his authority with a court-martial, and the staff sergeants all threaten to resign in protest.
• Hypocrite: A subtle, blink-and-you-miss-it example. Throughout the episode, Sobel pedantically hyper-focuses on any minor issue or error with any one of the soldiers he commands, and applies harsh penalties whenever he comes across them. All of which might be justified by Sobel's high-standards and a desire to make sure his soldiers are detail-focussed... except that when he issues Winters a charge for disobeying orders, Nixon dryly notes that he's misspelt "court-martial" on the paperwork. Apparently Sobel has more generous standards for mistakes he makes and is less concerned with double-checking and correcting his own minor errors.
• I'd Tell You, but Then I'd Have to Kill You: Nixon knows that the company is going to England and uses this phrase on Winters in a teasing "I know a secret" manner. When Winters doesn't take the bait, Nixon just gives in and tells him anyway.
• Incoming Ham: Sobel loves to announce himself on runs screaming "Hi-yo Silver!"
• Ironic Nickname: A place example. The mountain Currahee comes from a Cherokee word meaning "stand alone". This is where the Band of Brothers are united.
• Jerkass: While he may have a point on occasion, overall Sobel is depicted as a petty, spiteful, authoritarian, egotistical and bitter jerk.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As disproportionately harsh Sobel's punishments were, the reasons behind some of them were logical. For instance:
  • The infractions in the opening scene, such as the loose thread and the rusty bayonet, are known to many Army veterans as "attention to detail" although Sobel is shown taking it to an extreme.
  • Pvt. Parks stealing peaches. Soldiers stealing food from army supply means less food for everyone else.
  • One soldier has over 200 prophylactics^i.e.condoms in his gear. While prophylactics can also serve a secondary purpose of protecting gun barrels from the elements and inclement weather (besides using them for sex), this would be less necessary at boot camp. The man has no reason to keep that many.
    Sobel: "This man had 200 prophylactic kits in his foot locker! How in the name of God was he going to have the strength to fight the war?"
  • Even the spaghetti incident, as petty as it was, illustrates a point: a combat soldier should always be ready to drop everything and fight, and just because it's raining doesn't mean a soldier should get complacent and assume everything is postponed. War isn't like a baseball game that gets called off due to weather.
• Karma Houdini: Luz isn't seen getting punished for his little prank on Sobel^note As in Real Life; Sobel had no idea who pranked him. It seems that Sobel decides to punish Winters just to teach all the men a lesson.
• Kicked Upstairs: Sobel's fate. Once his incompetence is exposed, he's put in charge of a training school for doctors and chaplains jumping with the soldiers. The Army considers this a blessing for everyone: Sobel is obviously a qualified trainer, since Easy is the best company in the whole division, but since he sucks at leadership and is an awful tactician, it emphasizes his skills and diminishes his weaknesses. Sobel...feels differently.
• The Last Straw:
  • The trumped up charges of disobeying orders are this for Winters; he's clearly aware that Sobel has it in for him but is willing to suck it up and take it for the sake of the war and the unit for most of the episode. But Sobel impugning his honor and professionalism by implying he would actively disobey a direct order from a superior, as opposed to the order simply not reaching him (in the most generous interpretation; it's hinted Sobel is actively framing Winters in order to sabotage him) is where he draws the line.
  • Winters getting reassigned to the Battalion mess hall because of Sobel is what causes the NCOs' decision to mutiny.
• Loophole Abuse: When ordered by Sobel to report six men for infractions and their punishment, Winters simply picks the six men who were scheduled for latrine duty anyway and recommends them for that "punishment".
• Machiavelli Was Wrong: Proved by Sobel, who was definitely not loved. He wasn't particularly feared or respected, either, he was just hated – something Machiavelli warns against.
• Meaningful Name: Invoked by Sobel. He reminds Malarkey that his name is slang for "bullshit" and then punishes him for his weapon.
• The Mutiny: After Sobel's pettiness gets Winters reassigned, all of the Easy company sergeants sans Evans submit their resignations to Col. Sink and make it clear they will not serve under the man.
• The Neidermeyer: This episode emphasizes Sobel as the most hated commander of Easy Company.
  Nixon: You know a man in this company who wouldn't double-time Currahee with a full pack just to piss in that guy's morning coffee?
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Sobel has three during the episode.
    • When he finds out that Major Horton was not the one who ordered him to cut the fence and is being chewed out by a superior for his stupid actions.
    • When Winters requests trial by court-martial and he will need to prove his trumped up charges are legitimate or face serious consequences himself.
    • And one more, albeit more subdued is when he finds out he's been reassigned away from Easy Company. All the glory he hoped to achieve in combat is now out of his reach.
  • Lipton looks very concerned when he overhears some of the men griping about Sobel, especially as one of them makes a crack about fragging him. Less because of Sobel, but because having a CO the men openly grumble about tends to be increasingly bad for unit cohesion and morale.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • It's subtle, but during Winters' confrontation with Sobel over his charge and the (supposedly) amended orders he failed to obey there are several minor slips in his decorum that reveal just how pissed off under his reserve he truly is about the matter. Among these slips are that he has to be reminded to stand before Sobel at attention, snatches Sobel's pen from him without waiting for permission, and leaves without being dismissed, though he does salute.
  • Luz initially begins reading Colonel Sink's pre-invasion letter out in one of his typical irreverent impersonations, but gradually lets it slip once the letter's contents sink in.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: On the ship ride to Britain, Guarnere makes a comment about Sobel being Jewish, clearly showing his disdain for Jews by calling him a "Son of Abraham". Liegbott angrily says that he's Jewish too, and Guarnere responds, "Congratulations, get your nose out of my face", which results in a fight breaking out. This was a period where anti-Semitism was still fairly common in both America and Europe. Just before that, he also makes a comment about Winters being a Quaker and how he doesn't trust him to pull his weight in combat. This stems from Guarnere being Catholic, like most Italian Americans, and the long-standing divide between Catholics and Protestants dating back centuries.
• Pretentious Pronunciation: Sobel pronounces Perconte's last name as "Per-con-tay" while everyone else (including Perconte himself) pronounces it "Per-cont-ee".
• Rage Breaking Point: The men of Easy Company put up with a lot of petty bullshit from Sobel, despite it becoming increasingly clear that his pettiness is not matched with competence, but their last straw is reached when he manages to get Winters reassigned out of the company into the supplies and catering division; it prompts all the NCOs to resign en masse.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: Guarnere grabs the wrong jacket that contains a letter with news of his brother's death. It seems like a Contrived Coincidence, but Guarnere swears that it really did happen.^note Though in real life, he read the letter while in the latrine, not watching a movie.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Col Sink. He recognizes Winter's hard work and authorizes his promotion to 1st Lieutenant. When Sobel's NCO's threaten mutiny over serving under the man, he dresses down the Sergeants, demoting some and transferring another, but at his core recognizes how damn serious these men are to make such a play on the eve of D-Day. His only mistake is not realizing sooner how hated Sobel is by the men and his cruel and petty behavior is why Easy Company is the best physically in the corp. Once Sink recognizes how hated Sobel is and incompetent he is as a field commander, Sink kicks Sobel upstairs away from combat and Easy Company.
• Reassignment Backfire: Played with; it's hinted that Sobel assigning Winters to cafeteria duty before springing the spaghetti trick on the men was an attempt at sabotaging his popularity with the men, with the expectation that he would be blamed for filling the men up with spaghetti before they had to run up the mountain. If this was the goal, then it backfires when Winters instead joins the men in the run, and his solidarity with them increases their respect.
• Separated by a Common Language: On arrival at Upottery air base, Malarkey has a friendly conversation with a British soldier who is dressed in captured German uniform to give the paratroopers a visual demonstration of what their enemy will look like. He is left utterly flummoxed by the blizzard of Cockney rhyming slang the Tommy cheerfully throws his way, however.
• Serious Business:
  • Discussed when Lipton points out the NCOs resigning en masse over what's basically an incompetent superior could see them all tried and executed, because it's an act of mutiny and is a martial offence in the military. Had it been under other circumstances, Colonel Sink makes it clear that this is exactly what would have happened.
  • On the flip side of the matter, however, Sobel's incompetence, petty spitefulness and lack of connection with the men has by this time clearly reached a point where, as far as his NCOs are concerned, they really would rather face the risk of being shot by a firing squad than go into combat with him.
    Lipton: Alright. Good. But we'd all better be clear about the consequences.
    Martin: I don't care about the consequences.
    Lipton: John, we could be lined up against a wall and shot. Now, I'm ready to face that. And every one of us had better be too.
    [There's a contemplative pause]
    Guarnere: I will not follow that man into combat.
  • Sobel has a man drummed out of the paratroopers for stealing a can of peaches from the mess, and issues various punishments for infractions such as rust on a bayonet and a stray thread from a chevron. As discussed under Jerkass Has a Point, some of these can be justified (in particular, the can of peaches is theft, and suggests the soldier in question will steal from his fellow soldiers), though some of them are more petty and mean-spirited than others (he issues an infraction for one man for having too much personal correspondence at one point).
• Shout-Out:
  • Sobel's would-be war cry "Hi-ho Silver!" is taken from The Lone Ranger.
  • Furthermore, in keeping with his general Glory Hound tendencies, the rank-studded helmet and leather flying jacket that Sobel is wearing during the training sequences in England is very clearly modelled on that worn by General George S. Patton.
  • The movie the men watch when D-Day is postponed is Mr Lucky, starring Cary Grant.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Invoked and played for laughs. When Randleman asks Winters during their routine 12-mile hike on a Friday night imposed on them once more by Sobel, why Sobel hates Easy Company. Winters assures them all Sobel doesn't hate Easy Company, he just hates him. This adds some much needed levity to the moment and the men laugh noting they hate some of their comrades too.
• Time Skip: Twice. After a few scenes at Currahee, things skip to Easy Company leaving for England. Then they skip ahead to D-Day.
• Tranquil Fury: Winters is clearly steaming during his confrontation with Sobel over the supposedly amended orders that have led to his wrongful charge, but manages to keep a lid on it and just about maintain military decorum.
• The Triple: Nixon describes Winters as: "No flaws, no vices, No Sense of Humor."
• Undying Loyalty: We discover that Winters has inspired this from the men early on; it's telling that the last straw that gets the NCOs to collectively resign is Winters being transferred out of the company by Sobel.
• Unfriendly Fire: Discussed by Liebgott. He jokes that he'll frag Sobel once they get into combat. Since Sobel is reassigned, we never find out if he was serious.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Averted. One of the men is shown vomiting during the Currahee run.
• Yes-Man: He doesn't actually say much, but Sgt. Evans strongly gives the impression of being this to Captain Sobel. He is the one to deliver the official reprimand for disobeying orders to Winters (and seems quite pleased about it), is the only NCO who doesn't resign when Winters is transferred out of the company, and all over carries with him a general air of unctuousness when around Sobel.

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