Bastogne

When Bastogne was relieved by General Patton's Third Army, a Time magazine reporter interviewed one of the paratroopers who had successfully defended Bastogne:

“What was the secret? What set the 101st Airborne apart from other units in the
U.S. Army?”

The paratrooper snorted and told the reporter: "What the hell - everybody in this outfit is crazy, including me. If we weren't, we wouldn't be in it!"

The photo, above, is of a 101st trooper with his foot on the head of a dead attacker. It was taken outside Bastogne, Belgium in December, 1944. In the rear is a knocked-out Mark IV tank. This photo was taken by divisional photographer Albert A. Krochka.

(At Bastogne and the Battle Of The Bulge in WWII, the 101st Airborne was quite literally surrounded, outnumbered, cut off, and on their own. They had to hold out and win or die. They persevered against the odds and held on. The morale of the story is to not corner Americans… and don’t start a fight you can’t finish.)