"Double it, boys!"

The day would generally start at about 6:00. They'd have us do a five-mile run.

Little old lady walking down the street
Pack on her back and boots on her feet
Hey, old lady, where you going to?
She said, "The U.S. Army Airborne School"

We worked up to it. The first day was maybe four miles.

Hey, old lady, don't you be so bold,
Save that stuff
For the young and the bold

Not all of us had really done five-mile runs every day at 6:00 a.m. for a while. It took a while to get the hang of it.

Hey, young buck, don't you be so fool,
I'’m an instructor at the Airborne School,
She was hardcore Airborne
All the way.

Capt. Dale Dye: "Take them inside. The next formation will be called at 0830. Carry on."



Sgt. Farnsworth: "Square your shit away. Get ready for the field. Go."

The 11 general Orders

They had taught us all the general orders. For two days, we were obsessed with learning them.



There's an old military adage that says, "Shit rolls downhill."
And I guess what that means is that: This guy yells at this guy yells at this guy.
If this guy screws up, then it’s this guy's fault this guy's fault and this guy's fault.



Damian Lewis, playing Dick Winters, had been made platoon leader. And so he was in charge at that point of bullying everyone into learning their orders. Know your shit, if not, I'm gonna be taking the punishment. That's pretty much how it came down, because if somebody screwed up we'd get punished.

Guard duty (a/k/a sleep deprivation)

You know, after they've run you around for 14, 15, 16 hours they get tired and don't want to run you anymore. So they figure, "Put them on guard duty."

You'd sleep for two hours, then do an hour of guard duty...
By then, it was time to go run.

The seventh general order is to talk to no one except in the line of duty. I don't know. I guess I figured at the time it was in the line of duty to see what he was doing.

Ross McCarthy, who's playing "Liebgott", was afraid we were gonna be descended upon by a cadre of people. Which, I gotta say, those guys, they did have a way of jumping out of nowhere when you least expect it and yelling.

Shit rolls downhill.

Private Tipper was new. He was a replacement and I was a squad leader. So we grabbed somebody and showed him how to field strip an M-1 and put it together. It was his first day.

And sure enough, the next day, Staff Sergeant Freddy Joe Farnsworth comes sauntering in and was like, "Does he know how to field strip?" We're like, "We taught him." He did it in the bathroom the night before. Oh, God, the did it in a minute and a half, he was amazing.


- I got $20 on Tipper. Who's taking it?
- I'm in. He's gonna do it.

I was all cocky. I was like, "Watch this kid go." Well, sure enough... There's lots of pressure. I got a video camera on him. He freezes up a little.

At which point, Sergeant Freddy Joe turns to me, I'm the squad leader. Shit rolling downhill, takes video camera...
I think he's tired of being videotaped. He was mad that he told me I couldn't have the camera anymore and I still get to keep it. So he puts me down on the ground, about like that and about halfway down.



I was down there for two minutes and Frank John Hughes, who's playing Bill Guarnere says:
"All right," and he gets down too. And the next things you know, we had both squads pretty much the whole platoon volunteering to be down there with me.



And, by God, Tipper got it.

- You got 20 bucks to hand out.
Ron Livingston: "Airborne all the way."