By Chris Langlois (Chrisdfw) (12.239.86.117) on Sunday, February 17, 2002 - 03:12 pm:

Band of Brothers: A veteran's WW II story

It was D-Day over Normandy, France during World War II and the members of the 101st Airborne’s Easy Company prepared to parachute behind enemy lines.

Tracers and anti-aircraft fire zipped and exploded between the wings of the planes, and aboard one of the planes was Don Malarkey, now living in Salem, who would bottle up this and other war experiences for years to come.

One day, however, he would share his story for the whole world to hear.

Several years ago, writer Stephen Ambrose, got Malarkey and a number of his war buddies together in the basement of Malarkey’s Salem home, and from their stories of survival wrote Band of Brothers, a best selling book about Easy Company in World War II.

The experience of these veterans was also made into a 10-part miniseries by the same name that was recently aired on HBO.

In an interview with KATU News, Malarkey said it wasn’t an easy story to tell.

“I kept things buried inside of me for years and years,” he said from his Salem home.

When he tries to recall the memories, tears come instead.

“The problem is, if you don’t have people to talk to who have had the same experiences...well, you don’t have. I don’t know...you bury it….”

Tears choke him up and cut him off.

One of his worst memories comes from Bastogne, Belgium where the ferocity of the firepower and intensity of war burned into his memory its horrors. It was also a place where death took the lives of friends.

“My best friend, who was alongside me up there, was killed at Bastogne, Belgium on the tenth of January,” he said.

With all the tragedy of war that surrounded him, he still wanted a souvenir to take home to his father -- a German Luger.

At one point he thought he saw one on a dead German soldier.

“I don’t know what possessed me, but I ran out to try to get it,” he says now with a laugh.

“They (Germans) started opening up on me (with machine guns), and I zigzagged around all over the place. I’ll never understand how they didn’t hit me. There must have been three machine guns firing at me.”

Besides a German Luger, Malarkey brought home a bayonet from Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest and a Bronze Star for taking out German artillery that was firing on American troops storming a beach.

Malarkey said he saw more days of combat than anyone in the company but ended up sick and in the hospital when Easy Company captured the big prize -- Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest.

Malarkey knows he has had a positive impact on the world.

“It’s marvelous to really live your life and be able to say you made a contribution to humanity. A lot of people can’t say that, you know, and we can. And I like that,” he said.

From KATU News reporter Elaine Murphy

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