Clone Girly

a note about draft registration

during the second world war, the united states selective service system conducted a total of six draft registrations, the records of which are held collectively in two groupings at the national personnel records centre in st. louis, missouri. members of easy company were drafted in all but one of these registrations from october 1940 through to december 1942. the six registrations are as follows:

16 october 1940: males aged 21 to 35 "within the continental united states". winters, nixon, welsh, toye, perconte and liebgott were among those registered on this date.

1 july 1941: males "who had reached 21 since the first registration". lipton and speirs were registered on this date.

16 february 1942: between the ages of 20 and 45 "who had not previously registered". roe, bull, malarkey and luz, among others, were registered on this date.

27 april 1942: between the ages of 46 to 65 "not eligible for military service". no known easy company members were registered on this date.

30 june 1942: between the ages of 18 to 20. talbert, webster, grant, guarnere, babe, shifty, skip and christenson, among others, were registered on this date.

10-31 december 1942: "those who reached the age of 18 after 12 november 1942". penkala, who turned 18 in august 1942 three months before the cutoff, was nonetheless among those registered in this period.

if you have a family member or ancestor who served in a branch of the us armed forces during either the first or second world war, chances are that you can find their registration card on databases like ancestry.com and familysearch.org.

richard "dick" winters

lewis nixon

carwood lipton

ronald speirs

harry welsh

charles "chuck" grant

note: a few online sources incorrectly state that grant was born on 14 july 1915. his registration card gives his real date of birth as 1 march 1922, making him about 7 years younger than people generally think he is. supposedly this misconception comes from confusing grant with another veteran drafted between 1940-42, charles m. grant, who was born on 14 july.

william "bill" guarnere

joseph "joe" toye

george luz

eugene roe

donald malarkey

denver "bull" randleman

frank perconte

joseph "joe" liebgott

When she fell asleep that night, he visited her, in dreams. He was crying because of what she'd done in her waking hours. It was unnerving, to see him like that. The last and only time she'd seen tears on his cheeks was the day he walked out. She woke up in a cold sweat, and when she realized she was reaching for his hand on the other side of the bed, she let a string of curses fly from her lips. The clock ticked, interrupting her mindless tirade, and she turned on the lamp to check the time. It was just past nine o'clock, and she didn't want to go back to sleep any time soon, knowing he'd be waiting there again. He almost always was.

Not too late to go to the bar. And I got rid of your number But my heart still has it memorized.

Chuck scratched her number out in his address book, just minutes after he'd left on a misty May morning. Speeding away from her house in a stranger's yellow car, most of his things packed haphazardly in a suitcase, he tried to keep the tears from falling to no avail. As the taxi crossed a pothole, the finicky clasps flipped open and half his things fell to the floor. The cabbie apologized for the jolt, but Chuck was too busy staring at the tie she'd given him for his birthday just last month, with the beetle print. Because he would always kill the bugs she couldn't stand to touch when they invaded the indoors.

A tasteless gift, not to mention ugly. He wore it anyway, just once, to a conference where his suit jacket was buttoned up so high you could only see the pincers of the highest bug. His work friend teased, as they waited for the meeting to begin, that it looked as if the insect was clawing toward his neck. Chuck joked back that sometimes his relationship with the gifter felt like that- grasping, nearly choking -and received a weak laugh in return. He felt bad, almost immediately. Not really for making his companion uncomfortable, but for disparaging August like that. Their relationship wasn't that bad, right?

He stared at the phone. The clock ticked onward; it was only 17:00- 5 p.m., in civilian time -and the sun hadn't yet gone down. Where August lived, the world would have crept past twilight some time ago. God, he hated how he still knew her number by heart. Nonetheless, he punched in each digit until the last, watching his fingers tremble. He put down the receiver, checked his watch again. 17:04.

Not too early to go to the bar.

So now I'm sitting in this bar by myself, 'Cause I've tried everything else.

The words to first come to Chuck's lips were not his own drink order, but August's, and he faltered, not knowing halfway across the country, she too hesitated. She'd forgotten what he used to order, when they went out, and had to think a minute. It seemed fitting, to try and chase him out of her head with whatever it was he used to enjoy. Tequila? No. Whiskey? Maybe. Bourbon, that was it, bourbon. Each watched as the bartender poured, one bathed in the crisp light of a ceiling lamp, the other in the hazy waves of sunset streaming through the windows.

Chuck tipped his libation toward the sky as August murmured a thank-you for the drink. This is for you, he thought wryly; she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears pricking the corners of her gaze. Raising their beverages to their lips at the same moment, they held their breaths. He took a short sip, she a long. Four hundred miles between them, but it might as well have been the moon and back, for all they could tell.

I'm gonna drink, drink, drink you, Drink you away.

August laughed when she looked down at her wrist as if expecting to read the time there. He used to give her his watch, whenever she went drinking alone, even if they'd just had a fight. To make sure she didn't stay out too late. Funny, in a bitter way, that the last time they parted, he took that faithful watch with him, took their time away.

I'm gonna drown, drown, drown out All of this pain.

Chuck laughed when he reached into his pocket as if he'd find a pen and paper there. She always used to remind him to bring those things, should she think of an idea for her stories while out and about. It never ceased to annoy her and amuse him, how she had to ask him to carry most things, because she owned very few clothes with functioning pockets and avoided the hindrance of a purse. He wondered, as he sipped at his dark glass, if she'd written something about him in the last few months.

So keep pouring me something' till I'm feeling nothin', Gonna drink, drink, drink you, Drink you away.

Was he the villain in her story, now? The one who abandoned her, broke her heart?

Oh, no. She swirled the ice in her glass around with the tip of her ring finger, where once a band lay but was now bare. He could never be the bad guy, in anything she knew, fiction or real.

There's a chance that the whiskey Is only gonna take me back.

Oh, she remembered it all, so well. So did he.

And yet, neither wanted the memories, anymore.

~~~ Shaking his hand that first day at Toccoa in June of '42, bewildered by the sheer number of soldiers signed up to the paratroops and the absence of any women save for herself. Chuck leading her through the crowd, getting her the supplies and papers she needed, guiding her with that quiet confidence she would soon fall entirely in love with.

~~~ Tying her hair up with a ribbon one weekend when she still had her weekend pass. Him hopping up the stairs to the barracks, chatting with his buddies and smiling, then seeing August and pausing. She caught his eye in the mirror as his friends started teasing him, and he shooed them away as she rose from the small chair beside her bunk.

"Goin' somewhere?" he'd asked, glancing her up and down, and she held back a shiver at his gaze.

"Dancin'," she'd replied, cool as could be, and he ran his hand through his hair.

"A shame I won't be there to ask you to save a song for me."

She dared to wink as she passed him through the doorway, squeezing his arm. "Maybe next time."

~~~ Twirling a straw around a half-empty soda bottle in the hot Georgian summer of '43, a year after she'd first arrived. Chuck appearing down the road, waving his cap at his face to create some semblance of a cooling breeze. Her, raising her hand in greeting, and him beelining for her as soon as he saw. They sat under that sycamore all afternoon, save for the ten minutes he ran into town just down the road and got them two more sodas, one for each. She ended up drinking half of his, too. He didn't mind.

~~~ Going out to the club the last weekend before they shipped out to England, her on his arm the whole night. August polished the jump wings on his breast pocket with a proud thumb and before she could say "Currahee!" he was kissing her.

~~~ Watching the Statue of Liberty pass by from the deck of the troopship, bulky life vests around their necks. August grumbled that her bosom was being compressed, only loud enough for him to hear, and he smirked, replying just as quietly, "That just won't do." It was excruciating, to be standing right next to each other and know they had nowhere they could go for privacy.

~~~ The first night in Aldbourne, sneaking into the home he was billeted in hours after curfew, drawing the blackout curtains to hide not only the light from the bedroom but keep their midnight activities between the two of them.

~~~ Hearing those three words for the first time when he came to her on the evening of June 5. He looked liked he wanted to say goodbye, too, but she wouldn't let him. In her fear of not seeing him again, she neglected to tell him just how much she adored him in return.

That was her first mistake.

~~~ The second came the night she drank too much, soon after they'd returned to England after taking Carentan. She laughed and flirted with any guy who gave her a passing glance, so dizzy she couldn't tell who was Chuck and who wasn't until he leaned into her gaze, looking angry as a grizzly bear, not to mention miserably disappointed, and disappointedly miserable. He brought her out of the pub, scolding her for getting wasted, and she cried, clinging to him that she was so sorry. He'd murmured that it was alright, but it really wasn't, and they both knew it.

~~~ Strike three: going off the line when Joe Toye and Bill Guarnere got hit, and then not coming back for months. August knew she should have tried harder, to get back to him. No excuse she could give would be enough. It was warm, in the hospital. She was still tending to wounded men, but she didn't know any of them. It was easy, to forget that her friends were suffering in that horrible forest when she had handsome lips calling her an angel everywhere she walked and a mattress to fall asleep on, not to mention a blanket and a pillow.

That Chuck was shaking, alone in a foxhole, on her birthday, while she celebrated with her nurse friends, uncorking a bottle of champagne like it was the Roaring '20s. That he would heartbroken to know she'd let one of the recovering soldiers kiss her, on the lips, when she was a little tipsier than she'd expected to be. More than once. She cried, that night, but it hardly made a difference, and she dried her tears. She just wouldn't tell him. She would be faithful from here on out. Once she saw his smile and felt his arms around her, nothing would stand between them again.

~~~ She told him. It just poured out, one night in Zell am See when they'd gotten into a fight. She wasn't sure if she wanted to go home with him, when she had family half a country away, and he thought that meant she wasn't serious about him. Then she had to go and reveal that stupid, stupid thing she'd done a few months prior and watch his carefully neutral expression fade into not shock, not anger, just hurt.

It was terrible. He deserved so much better. Which was why she didn't go after him when he walked out of the room. She thought that was it. That he was done with her. But he came back the next morning, and he coaxed out the full story, that yes, she was drunk, and he seemed a little more relieved, but things were still fragile between them for weeks after her confession.

~~~ Not coming to find him when she'd heard he'd been shot. She'd crumpled on her bed and clutched the winter jacket of his ODs, which he'd left behind in the closet that night. It smelled like dirt and musty sweat and his cologne, impossibly, and she clung to it as she rocked back and forth on the sheets, whimpering. Was he dead? She couldn't face the possibility. The worst part, that she would never forgive herself for, was when Captain Speirs found her asleep and had to wake her to inform her Chuck would be alright.

When he'd frowned judgmentally at the ring on her finger, as if there were something wrong with it, she'd been silently offended. How dare he judge her and Chuck so readily. Just days later, when she sat next to Chuck's hospital bed and he did his best to smile at her but couldn't, she was disappointed, and then she understood exactly where Speirs was coming from. How could she think such selfish things, when he'd nearly lost his life, when he was trying his best to be strong for her despite the incredible effort it took him?

~~~ Convincing him to move in with her in a cramped apartment in her hometown when they got back to the States. So eager to start a life in peacetime with him, she neglected his wishes to see his family again and soaked up all the 'welcome home's she could get. One night, she called him possessive after a party when he'd pulled her away from dancing with a man he didn't know was her cousin. He shot back that he had good reason to suspect infidelity. She cried, and for the first time, he didn't apologize until the next morning.

That was really the beginning of the end.

~~~ He was on a trip to see his relatives for the holidays; she'd stayed in their apartment to stay with her own friends and family. An old flame showed up in town and she was foolish enough to accept a cafe meetup with him, just to talk, like adults. She didn't expect him to lean across the table and kiss her, and as she pushed him back, she certainly was not prepared to see Chuck at the door, holding a bouquet of flowers, staring at her with such pain in his gaze she was fairly sure he was going into cardiac arrest right then and there.

~~~ She followed him home, sobbing, trying to explain the man was no one, her ex, she hadn't wanted him to kiss her, but Chuck was done. This was the last straw. Though she pleaded with him, he packed his things, and she didn't try to physically stop him. She tried to reach him with words, but they were no longer enough, and when she stepped in front of the door, he tightened his jaw and paused.

"August."

He hadn't called her by her first name in years, always 'Babe' or 'Darling' or, even if he was mad, 'Auggie'.

"I'm leaving."

"Please," she'd gasped out, "Chuck, please."

Even when he pushed her aside, then, he was gentle. He left the front door unlocked, if she wanted to go after him, but she watched from the window, clinging to the sill, as he waved down a taxi. Pushing the case into the backseat, the side of his face twitched and August wanted nothing more than to sprint down to the sidewalk and fling herself into his arms. Her legs gave out from underneath her and by the time she'd regained control of them, the cab was turning down the block.

But I'm willing to stay all night, If moving on is at the bottom of an ice-cold glass.

He waved down the bartender, she did the same. Each drinking a little slower than the other, or quicker, it didn't matter. They were so far apart, it was almost like they were together again. Imagine that: getting tipsy alone at a bar felt more like a healthy relationship than theirs had ever actually been. Another, then one more, until she was giggling into her glass, believing it promised the secret to all her happiness, if she just drained one more pint, then one more, and he was fumbling with his wallet to withdraw the correct bills, hand trembling.

I'm gonna drink, drink, drink you, Drink you away.

August doubted this was the first time the bartender had seen a girl, slumped over on the counter, sobbing incoherently. No one with her, no sympathy offered by a kind stranger, just tears and hiccups and mumbled nothings. He passed her a few napkins, the best he could offer as tissues, and she wailed a thank you, fumbling at her nose. She knicked her nostril with her fingernail and her eyes watered even more at the stinging feeling.

Selfish, disloyal, controlling, stupid, stupid, stupid. If she'd had any less sense of self-preservation, she might have purposefully hit her head on the glossy wood bar. Everything she did was wrong, so of course, he left her. She would have walked out, too. No doubt he hated her, or maybe he'd moved on already. The bourbon was finally doing what she'd wanted it to, helping her think of him less and less, but she still clung to the memories like the greedy fool she knew she was. How could he hate her more than she already did herself, she who'd hurt such a good person, thrown those years of his life- in wartime, nonetheless! -into gradual turmoil.

I'm gonna drown, drown, drown out All of this pain.

As the memories of August faded, there was one select moment of the war he'd tried in vain to forget, over and over, that now resurfaced again. He groaned, rubbing his forehead, as his foot jolted in his boot. The gunshot still echoed in his thoughts, sometimes, as if he was still standing on that road in Zell am See, walking toward that drunk private, hands outstretched only to help. Once, in the middle of the night, he wondered if August would do something like that, if she was drunk enough. He promptly rolled over and stared at her sleeping form. No, he reassured himself, not her. She'd hurt him before, yes, but never like that, and she wouldn't.

She'd loved him.

He ordered another bourbon, jaw clenched. She probably had kept her heart for him, at some point, somewhere down the line, that changed. Any idea of that turn in her feelings was as hazy as the alcohol distorting the rest of his mind, and Chuck raised his glass, determined to get her out of his head, somehow.

So keep pouring me something' till I'm feeling nothin', Gonna drink, drink, drink you, Drink you away.

Stumbling home after the bar, August crossed the street without looking, her hands stuffed in her pockets and her head bowed. The most she could do was try to keep on her feet, she was so intoxicated. Chuck hated when she drank this much. No longer could he tell her it was bad for her, but he also wouldn't hold her hair back from the toilet the next morning, or kiss her forehead with cool lips and tell her, with a sigh, it would be alright. As she stepped over a pothole in the pavement, August's ankle bent the wrong way, she yelped a curse, and tripped forward, flailing.

Drink you away.

Car headlights, a loud burst of noise, and she squeezed her eyes shut, feeling gravel digging into her knees, then-

I'm still sitting in this bar by myself, 'Cause I've tried everything else.

Chuck, changing his poison of choice to a single shot of whiskey for the last indulgence of the night, nearly choked. His heart seemed to have stopped entirely in his chest, and he clutched at his shirt, frightened that his copious consumption of alcohol tonight had driven him to a heart attack. Then it began to beat again, frantic, and he took a few deep breaths to soothe it. He forced down the shot and rose from the barstool, wiping the side of his mouth with his sleeve.

This was not the first time this had happened, since Austria. Four times, it was because of August. He thought, wryly, as he waved a cab, leaning against a lamppost for stability, that maybe this last time was her doing, too. Ha! As if.

Drink, drink, drink you, Drink you away. I'm gonna drown, drown, drown out, All of this pain.

A week passed, and a pint smashed on the tile of Charles Grant's kitchen as he stared at the letter in his shaking hands. As bourbon seeped in the tiles, he followed the drink in its descent but managed to catch himself on a stool and land beside the glass shards rather than on top of them. Major Winters, out of the blue, had sent him a letter. It seemed a fairly congenial outreach at first and Chuck found himself glad to hear from his old CO. Then, as Winters rambled on about teacups- teacups? since when was Dick Winters an avid tea drinker? -he realized there was a greater purpose to the message.

Skimming the last few lines, Chuck read the very thing he'd dreaded since the first day he met August Seymour, that sunny June day, as he guided her through the crowd, holding tight to his arm as if she feared being swept away. Even now, he could hardly breathe; even now, after all they'd been through, he still gasped her name; even now, months after that end-all-be-all fight, he began to cry.

He'd tried to forget her, in vain, just seven days ago. There was no point then, he'd never manage it, but now, he wouldn't have to try, anymore.

First Sergeant August Seymour was dead.

So keep pouring me something' till I'm feeling nothin'.

Chuck felt like Captain Nixon, in some twisted way, as he flung bottle after bottle to the ground. The small selection of liquor in his cellar lay in bits, drowning the rug in stains and an ugly mixture of strong smells. Chuck stumbled back, draining the last of the beer in his hand, then hurled it to the ground with a viciousness that surprised even himself. He used to play baseball, as a kid, and he was a damn fine pitcher. His curveball showed now, all these years later, as the remnants of the bottle skidded across the floor and bumped the wall.

He drew in a strangled breath, running his hands through his hair, and sank onto the basement steps.

Gonna drink, drink, drink you, Drink you away, drink you away.

Christmas Eve, 1948. Raising a flask, taking a sip. Bourbon, as always. Chuck wondered if she'd ever tasted the drink, before... He sighed at the stone slab, as stiff and cold as the last time he'd kissed her cheek goodbye. The trembling in his limbs, he told himself, was a result of the cold, and an effect of his injury in Austria. Still, as he poured out a little of the liquor onto the grass at the foot of August Seymour's grave.

He could never forget her. If he could, why was he crying, and shaking, and wishing she was impossibly still here? Too late to come back, too late to move on. Always August, never August. Her kiss, her raised voice, gone, gone, gone.