Carwood Lipton quotes from Band of Brothers

Lipton

[narrating] Where's Dike? I probably heard that question a thousand times. I probably asked it a few times myself. There were long stretches where we didn't know where Lieutenant Dike was. He'd disappear go off on his walks for hours at a time.

Lipton

[narrating] Heyliger might have made a good C.O., but before we got a chance to find out he was accidentally shot by a sentry. Then came Norman Dike. Dike wasn’t a bad leader because he made bad decisions. He was a bad leader because he made no decisions.

Lipton

[narrating] Dike was a favorite of someone at Division. He'd been sent down to E-Company to get some combat experience. Sometimes we got the feeling E-Company was an annoyance to him. Something unpleasant he had to get through before he could continue his march up the ladder.

Lipton

[narrating] Fear is poison in combat. Something we all felt, but you just didn't show. You can't. It's destructive, and it's contagious.

Lipton

[voiceover] On the report it said Compton was being taken off the line because of a bad case of trench foot. It didn’t say anything about him losing his friends. Buck was a great combat leader. He was wounded in Normandy and again in Holland. He received the Silver Star for his part in taking out those German guns on D-Day. He took everything the Krauts could throw at him, time and again. I guess he just couldn’t take seeking his friends Toye and Guarnere torn up like that. No one ever thought less of him for it.

Lipton

Henry V was talking to his men. He said, "from this day to the ending of the world... we in it shall be remembered. We lucky few, we band of brothers. For he who today shed his blood with me shall be my brother."

Sobel

[Addressing whole platoon.] You people are at the position of attention! [To Perconte] Private Perconte, have you been blousing your trousers over your boots like a paratrooper?

Perconte

No, sir.

Sobel

Then explain the creases at the bottom.

Perconte

No excuse, sir.

Sobel

Volunteering for the Parachute Infantry is one thing, Perconte, but you've got a long way to prove that you belong here. Your weekend pass is revoked. [moves on] Name?

Luz

Luz, George.

Sobel

[examining Luz's M1 rifle] Dirt in the rear sight aperture. Pass revoked. [walks over to another soldier] When did you sew on these Chevrons, Sergeant Lipton?

Lipton

Yesterday, sir.

Sobel

[displays a loose thread pulled from the stripe] Long enough to notice this – revoked.

Lipton

Sir. [Sobel walks over to another soldier.]

Sobel

Name.

Malarkey

Malarkey, Donald G!

Sobel

Malarkey is slang for "bullshit," isn't it? [takes his rifle]

Malarkey

Yes, sir!

Sobel

Rust on the butt-plate hinge spring, Private Bullshit – revoked. [tosses his rifle at Malarkey and moves on] Name.

Liebgott

Liebgott, Joseph, D, sir.

Sobel

Rusty bayonet, Liebgott. You want to kill Germans?

Liebgott

Yes, sir.

Sobel

[knocks his helmet with the bayonet] Not with this. [to the whole platoon] I will not take this rusty piece of shit to war, and I will not take you to war in your condition. [throws bayonet to the ground] Now thanks to these men and their infractions, every man in the company who had a weekend pass has lost it. Change into your PT gear. We're running Currahee.

Lipton

Now, if we are all going to go through with this, we all have to be aware of 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 the rest of you better be, too.

Guarnere

[Regarding Sobel] I will not follow that man into combat.

Me neither.

Lipton

Alright, then. Let's do it.

Guarnere

"I hereby...no longer wish to serve...as a Non-Commissioned Officer...in Easy Company." [they each then sign their individual papers and hand them to Lipton]

Lipton

Alright then. Good luck. [leaves to take the papers to Col. Sink]

Malarkey

Hey, I promised my baby brother I'd fetch him back a Luger, so I get first dibs, okay? [to an 82nd soldier] Check that one.

Lipton

It's the navy.

Winters

The landings have started. Let's go.

[looks at his watch] Right on time.

Guarnere

Yeah? [points to a dead American paratrooper] Well, tell him that, Cowboy.

My name's Hall.

Guarnere

Is that so?

A lot of you guys get injured?

Martin

It's called "wounded", peanut. Injured is when you fall out of a tree or something.

Muck

Don't worry. There's enough crap flying around here, you're bound to get dinged sometime. Almost every single one of these guys' been hit at least once. Except for Alley, he's a two-timer. He landed on broken glass in Normandy and got peppered by a potato masher in Holland. Now, Bull, he got a piece of an exploding tank in Holland. Now, George Luz, here...has never been hit. You're one lucky bastard.

Luz

Takes one to know one, Skip.

Muck

Eh, consider us blessed. Now, Liebgott, that skinny little guy? He got pinged in the neck in Holland. Now, right next to him, that other skinny little guy, is Popeye. He got shot in his scrawny little butt in Normandy. And, uh, Buck got shot in his rather large butt in Holland.

Penkala

Yeah, kind of an Easy Company tradition, getting shot in the ass.

Muck

Hey, even 1st Sgt. Lipton over there. He got a couple of pieces of a tank shell burst in Carentan. One chunk in the face, another chunk almost took out his nuts.

Guarnere

How are those nuts, sarge?

Lipton

Doing fine, Bill...nice of you to ask.

You wanna know if they're true or not, the stories about me? Did you ever notice with stories like that, everyone says they heard it from someone who was there. Then when you ask that person, they say they heard it from someone who was there. It's nothing new, really. I bet if you went back two thousand years, you'd hear a couple centurions standing around yakkin' about how Tertius lopped off the heads of some Carthaginian prisoners.

Lipton

Well, maybe they kept talking about it because they never heard Tertius deny it.

Maybe that's because Tertius knew there was some value to the men thinking he was the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the whole Roman Legion. [Turns to leave]

Lipton

Sir? These men aren't really concerned about the stories. They're just glad to have you as our CO. They're happy to have a good leader again.

Well, from what I've heard, they've always had one. I've been told there's always been one man they could count on. Led them into the Bois Jacques, held them together when they had the crap shelled out of them in the woods. Every day, he kept their spirits up, kept the men focused, gave 'em direction... all the things a good combat leader does. You don't have any idea who I'm talking about, do you?

Lipton

No, sir.

Hell, it was you, First Sergeant. Ever since Winters made Battalion, you've been the leader of Easy Company. Oh, and you're not going to be First Sergeant much longer, First Sergeant.

Lipton

Sir?

Winters put you in for a battlefield commission, and Sink approved on your behalf. You should get the official notice in a few days. Congratulations, Lieutenant.