Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends Quotes

“I put my hand on Bill's shoulder and told him, yeah the sacrifice was worth it. He said, 'Yeah, I think so, too.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“It's a different generation, kid. Back then, people interacted with each other, they were patriotic, they cared about their community, shared what little they had. Today everybody's separate.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“The heroes are the kids who gave 100 percent; they gave their lives. The heroes are the mothers who gave up a son, who carried him for nine months, and raised him to do right, and he does right, and at eighteen, he goes to fight for his country, and he dies doing right. That's a hero.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Doc Roe was right there, trying to patch us up. Without him, we wouldn't be alive. Roe was the best medic we ever had. He was born to be a medic. You could always depend on him. You hollered, 'Medic!" he was right there come hell or high water, he knew what he was doing. He was compassionate, took care of you mentally, physically, every way. They put me on a stretcher before Joe. I said, 'I told you I'd beat you back to the States,' and then I passed out.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“When someone takes a shell for you, it's hard to forget about it.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Do you remember the other day when you told me about you and Muck receiving communion up in the woods in the snow in Bastogne, and what you said to Muck—that if you died, you would die in a state of grace?" He said to me, 'Babe, I never forgot you telling me that. So when we shot that scene with Father Maloney giving communion, I put that in myself. I turned to the character Babe, and said, 'Well Heffron, if we die, we'll die in a state of grace.' Richard Speight did that on his own. That really affected me.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“What was strange was when Frank Hughes or the other actors would talk to Robin Laing, and he'd say, 'Hey, Babe,' or 'Hey, Heffron.' It made me stop and look around.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“He had the paratrooper uniform on because he didn't have time to change, he had to come right from the set to meet us. Bill shook his head, and said, 'I know who you are.' He looked just like Bill as a young man. Frank said, 'Boy, oh, boy if you guys ain't got it made when you were kids—I got all the broads coming up to me. You guys must have had a picnic. The uniform draws 'em like flies.' I said, Christ, you even sound like Bill!" He said, 'I have to stay in character." He had to stay in character!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“The first time we went back to Bastogne, thank God it wasn't winter. The foxholes are still there. There's some debris lying in the holes. The outlines from the baseplate of the mortar is still there, where Malarkey had it set up.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“As bad as it was—and you paid a heavy price for being a paratrooper, believe me, always put on the front lines under bad conditions—and even with the emotional scars you live with, I'm glad I did it. All goodness came out of it. I would never have had the opportunity to meet guys like Winters, Guarnere, Toye, Ed Joint and Joe Lesiewksi, Malarkey, J.D. Henderson, Shifty Powers, Chuck Grant, One Lung McClung, Compton, Mike McMann, and most important, Muck, Penkala, Campbell, and Julian, who never came back. Guarnere I don't have to mention, he's nuts, he always let's me know he's around! It makes you feel good that you were with these guys all over Europe in some tough spots, guys you shared a hole with, and guys who saved your life ...”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“The reunions have always been more fun than serious. When you're with the guys, you're eighteen year old again.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Bill was good to my daughter while I was sick. I was lying in a hospital bed for almost a year, and the doctors didn't expect me to walk again. Bill took care of us. He came to see me every day.

(Bill adds: 'You owe me for parking. Sixteen dollars a day for a year! He was on so many drugs, he was nuttier than a fruitcake. Coco loco!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“If you ever hear Bill's sayings, he copies them from me. If you offer him something to eat, he says, 'No thanks, I just had a peanut.' Well, he got that from me. It's supposed to be funny, but he says it constantly, so it gets on my nerves. Bill says, 'I'm sorry you ever told me that one.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen, or that it wasn't as bad as they say, no, it was worse than they say. What we saw, what these Germans did, it was worse than you can possibly imagine.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“As bad off as we were, as cold as we were, as hungry as we were, as sick as we were, I don't think an American Airborne soldier could throw down his gun.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Joe Toye would try and lighten things up at night by singing 'I'll Be Seeing You.' He'd sing a line of that song and before you know it, the guy next to him starts singing, and the guys next to him, and soon everybody's singing. Even I'm singing and thinking, 'What the hell, we're all nuts.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“We knew each other's next move, we trusted each other, it went right back to that bond. You'd give up your life for the man beside you. That's when boys became men.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Every June we think of D-Day, every September we think of Holland, every December we think of Bastogne.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“When I think about the war, I don't think about the battle, I think about the men. I look at an American flag today, and I see the faces of men I fought with, the ones who lived and the ones who died.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Frank John Hughes, who played Will Bill Guarnere, had a special duty that required his wearing his uniform/costume off the set. Looking exactly like an American paratrooper of 1944, complete with his set of jump wings, his pant legs bloused into his Corcoran boots, and a Screaming Eagle patch on his shoulder, Hughes reported to Heathrow Airport. *

*In uniform, Hughes attracted many looks of admiration, especially from women.”
― Tom Hanks, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Babe got his five minutes of fame—he was an extra in the Holland episode, a scene in Eindhoven. He's sitting at a table with a hat on, watching the action. He thinks he's a big shot now. I want to get in one of those Al Capone movies. Or be in Godfather Ten.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“They showed more footage of D-day, and I thought, Mother of God, wait until those people see me. They're gonna know why they call me Wild Bill.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“They took us into the editing room and showed us some footage of our D-day drop. Planes all over the sky, paratroopers coming down in the dark. My first combat jump. I'll never forget it. Adrenaline pumping, going into the unknown. That scene made me want to relive that jump in the worst way. Those dirty sons of beetles.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Each soldier has his own personal thoughts about what he experienced there. You think of what happened there, who was where, who got hit, who died where, you look for foxholes. Some of them are graves of our buddies. You barely survived there. No place has the same charge as Bastogne. It looks like it did in 1944. The woods are there, the foxholes are there. The place is eerie.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“For the first couple years, the towns we went to were up in arms that we were coming, they were scared. We were just fresh from war. They figured we were killers, we were savages, we were going to turn the town upside down. They have have heard what we did to London after Normandy! But when the men got there, we were like pussycats. After combat, you don't even want to kill a bug.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“One funny thing happened after the book came out; My brother Shad called me and said, 'I want to apologize. I just read the book. You did have a German general surrender to you!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“I bluffed my way through the interview like I knew everything about printing, and of course I knew nothing at all! But I got the job, so I read up on it, looked in the book for places that will school you, took some classes. I did that with everything. I did it in war.”
― William Guarnere, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Well, one time I had a German general surrendered to me.'

My brother jumped ten feet off the chair. 'Dad, we told you he'd come up with stories!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“The German officers' favorite. It got me sick. And Eddie, too, he started crying more. I thought to myself, imagine if that was your own sister, or your daughter.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Eddie Stein, he was my assistant machine gunner and my friend, he broke down next to me. He said, 'Babe, can you believe what man can do to man?”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends