Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest

by Stephen E. Ambrose

First Lt. Raymond Schmitz decided to ease the tension with some physical activity. He challenged Winters to a boxing match. “Come on, Winters, let’s go out there behind the tents and box.” “No, go away.” Schmitz kept after him. Finally he said, “O.K., let’s wrestle.” “Dammit, enough, you’ve been egging me long enough, let’s go.” Winters had been a wrestler in college. He took Schmitz down immediately, but he threw him too hard. Schmitz suffered two cracked vertebrae, went to the hospital, and did not get to go to Normandy. His assistant leader of the 3d platoon, 2d Lt. Robert Mathews, took his place, with Sergeant Lipton as his second in command. The rest of that day and night on up to the time the men strapped on their parachutes, Winters had a constant line of troopers asking him, with smiles on their faces, to break their arms or crack their vertebrae.