A Company of Heroes

by Marcus Brotherton

  My mom has always found it very difficult to talk about Skip’s military career. She mentioned that when Skip got his wings, he was so thrilled. Parachuting was really his thing. She said that it was very quiet in the house after he left. Their mom spent a lot of time baking cookies and sending them to the troops.

  I know Skip was much more honest about what was going on with his sister than with his mother. From what I’ve seen of his letters to his mother, they’re all like, “I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine. We’re getting lots to eat. I’m going to church.” But when he talked to his sister, he said things like, “I’m tired. We’ve lost a lot of men,” that sort of thing. Letters were all censored, of course, so he couldn’t say a lot about specifics, but the tone definitely changed when he wrote to his sister. In one letter, sent to his sister right after the fighting in Holland, Skip writes that he was so tired he “just wanted to lie down and stay down.”

  Unfortunately, there was a fire at their mother’s house in 1948 and so much of their personal effects were destroyed, including most of Skip’s letters. But there’s one we’ve kept, written from Skip to his sister. It was postmarked on November 30, 1944, and sent from Mourmelon, France. The men were taking a brief respite there after fighting in Normandy and Holland. The men didn’t know it yet, but they were just about to be sent to Bastogne, Skip’s last battle. The letter reads, in part:Dear Ruth:

  . . . You mentioned Ann Brody in your letters. It seems funny she would ask about me. I thought she would be married like the rest of the girls I knew in school. I guess there can’t be very many that aren’t married that I used to run around with.

  . . . I’m glad to hear Mom is feeling ok. I worry about her all the time. I wish this dam’ war would end so I could get to see you and Mom again. After leading the life I have for the last two years it even seems hard for me to picture what our home looks like. It sure will take a lot to settle me down for a while after this war ends. I’ve been used to a pretty wild life in the army.

  . . . I’m sorry to hear that Elmer will be coming overseas soon. I was hoping that he wouldn’t have to get in this awful mess. Let’s hope that it will end before he has a chance to see action. I have had my full of this fighting too.

  I’ve been busy all day working with the other sgts. on our new quarters. There are five of us in one room. We have it fixed up pretty nice. We have a swell radio that we bought.

  I’m sending you some of this dam’ foreign money I’ve been carrying around. It’s about the only souvenir I can pick up and hold on to.

  Well Ruth I better close this now because I have to write Mom a letter too.

  Love always

  Skip

  Tony Garcia was a new replacement in Skip’s mortar squad, and under Skip’s command. Tony told me that he went off base one weekend while in England to have a little fun, and Skip found out about it. Skip could have turned him in and gotten him tossed out of Easy Company, but instead, he just chewed him out and ended it there. Tony always thanked Skip for his flexibility, and never put Skip on the spot again.

  Don Malarkey told me an incident that is in neither the book nor the movie. After the 120-mile march that Easy Company made from Toccoa to Atlanta, Malarkey’s legs were so bad he had to crawl, and began to head to the mess tent on all fours. When Skip saw Don he grabbed both mess kits and said, “No friend of mine crawls anywhere.” Skip went and filled both with food and came back to the tent to eat with him.

  We have a clipping from the Buffalo Evening News that names Skip as part of a small force of 101st Airborne paratroopers who turned the tables on a larger group of German paratroopers. North of Nijmegena, four American paratroopers returned from patrol along the banks of the Neder Rhine and reported a large group of Germans at an important crossroads a short distance away. Dick Winters led a reconnaissance squad to within 250 yards of the German position, wiped out seven Germans trying to set up a gun emplacement, captured another worming his way through a drainage pipe, then charged the rest with their bayonets. Skip was awarded a Bronze Star for this battle.

  That was the most detail we knew of Skip’s action in combat.

  Skip’s death is shown in both the book and the movie. It’s so sad. This is the part that we didn’t know about until years later. Skip and Alex Penkala were in their foxhole during heavy shelling outside Foy on January 9, 1944. A shell hit their foxhole directly, killing them instantly. George Luz Sr. was out in the open when the shelling started, and Skip and Alex had yelled for him to jump into theirs. Fortunately, George had jumped in another hole. When the shelling finished, George ran to check on Skip and Alex. He found only some pieces of their bodies and part of a sleeping bag.41

  We have a copy of the Western Union telegram that arrived from Washington, DC, on January 26, 1945. It reads simply:The secretary of war desires me to express his deep regret that your son Sergeant Warren H. Muck was killed in action on ten January in Belgium. Confirming letter follows.

  J.A. Ulio, the adjutant general

  A letter dated January 12, 1945, which my mother wrote to Skip, was returned to sender, marked simply, “Deceased, Co E 506, Lt. Ronald Speirs.” We still have that letter. Unknowingly, Mom had written cheerily to her brother, “Hi, how are you? I haven’t heard from you in a couple weeks. I hope everything is okay with you . . . I hope you will be able to come home soon.”

  Colonel Robert Sink wrote to Skip’s mother March 23, 1945. The letter was kindly worded, and mentioned Skip had been buried in a United States military cemetery in Belgium, but didn’t offer any details surrounding his death. I think Colonel Sink’s letter explains why our family was confused about the details of Skip’s death for so many years. Probably, Skip’s friends thought we had been informed. But for fifty-five years all we had was the telegram and Colonel Sink’s letter.

  Years Later

  When Skip died, his sister refused to celebrate holidays for some time. The only thing she ever mentioned about the experience was that when she saw the men in uniform walking up to the house with a telegram, there was no doubt in her mind her brother was gone. Skip’s obituaries ran in the papers. After that, virtually nothing more was said. People simply found it too hard to talk about Skip.

  All that changed in 1999 when our city’s Chamber of Commerce phoned and said a man was trying to locate the relatives of Warren Muck. It turned out it was Richard Speight Jr., who was scheduled to portray Skip in the miniseries. We had never heard of the book Band of Brothers, and didn’t know HBO was turning it into a movie. Richard had gone to great lengths to locate us. My mom had married in 1945 and had a different last name. Skip’s folks had both passed away. So finding our family was not an easy task.

  Richard was in boot camp in England for the series, and he and I started what became a long, amazing e-mail correspondence. Richard directed us to the book at first, which filled in details about Skip’s death. Richard called my mom, letters flew back and forth across the Atlantic, and we developed an incredibly close relationship with him. Richard was able to get the story about Skip swimming the Niagara put into the script. My sister and I finally met him in Paris at the premiere. My folks met Richard at the Philly premiere. We’ve remained close to this day.

  While Band of Brothers was in production, I wrote to our congressman John LaFalce to inquire about getting Skip’s Purple Heart replaced. My grandmother had put it away for safekeeping and, when she passed away, it was never found. Congressman LaFalce responded with not only replacing Skip’s Purple Heart, but also providing seven other medals Skip had received including Bronze Stars, Distinguished Unit Citations, and more. The congressman came to my mother’s house, along with media representatives, and presented the medals to her. It was really a thrill.

  Faye Tanner, Skip’s sweetheart during the war, married about five years after the war ended. When the story about my mom receiving Skip’s medals aired on the local TV stations, she saw it. She was just up one morning and had the news on with the sound turned d
own, just puttering around the house, when she looked up and saw Skip’s face on the television screen, after all those years. She was so stunned. She came over to see Mom later that week and brought over some of Skip’s things that he had sent her from the war, his jump wings, and some photos. My Mom and this lovely lady got together again later that week to talk about the man they both loved very much. We stayed in contact with her from then on. She and Don Malarkey had corresponded after Bastogne, both devastated by Skip’s death. But, as they lived on opposite coasts, they had never met. She bravely decided to join me on a trip to Fort Campbell. Skip’s best friend and Skip’s fiancée met for the first time. Introducing them to each other was a moment I’ll never forget.

  Something So Honest

  About two years ago I received an e-mail from a soldier who was serving with his family in Germany. They have a Boy Scout troop on base, and every year they visit different American military cemeteries to do cleaning work on the crosses. He wrote me to say that his son specifically asked to go find my uncle’s cross to clean it. He sent me a photo of his son cleaning Skip’s cross. I mailed the Boy Scout troop a flag signed by Bill Guarnere as a thank you gift. Those types of things just keep happening year after year.

  Skip was a remarkable man and I’m so proud to call him my uncle. I asked Richard Speight how people can best remember Skip Muck. Here is his eloquent reply: I know you e-mailed me about this a while ago. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It is quite a stumper—how to put it into words, I mean. Then it struck me . . . you know what is amazing? That people are still talking about your uncle and his impact on the world more than 60 years after his death. He never married, never had kids, was never elected to public office, never became a captain of industry. Yet here we are, discussing the impact he’s had on us and the world we live in. And that right there sums up his legacy to me.

  In a time that seems more selfish than any before it, the act of doing something selfless stands out like a lighthouse on a foggy sea. He knowingly entered a situation that put his life at risk, and he did it because he knew it was the right thing to do. He represents so many men and women who came before and after him, the men and women of the armed forces who do what needs to be done in spite of the danger. But I don’t think his legacy is a military one. I believe it’s more universal and grander in scope.

  There seems to be something so simple about Skip, something so honest, so down to earth, so ubiquitously American about him that he serves as a constant reminder—an enduring example—that those who think not of themselves but rather of the people and the world around them are the ones who truly make a difference. It would be easy to attribute Skip’s heroism to some special power, some unique gift he and others like him possess that we regular folk don’t. But the truth is, he was just a man—maybe even just a boy—who dug down deep inside and found the courage and the strength and the drive to do what needed to be done. He has left me and countless others like me wondering if we would have made the same choice. Would we have found that courage in ourselves?

  For me, Skip has taken heroism out of mythology. Do I have the strength of character to do what needs to be done? Skip did, and he inspires others like me to try and do the same. One thing is for sure. If every person in America could channel his “inner Muck,” this country would be an amazing place. I think that is a pretty impressive mark to leave behind.

  25

  ALEX PENKALA JR.

  Interview with Rudolph Tatay, nephew

  I’m not old enough to actually remember my uncle. The last time he was home, I was just three years old, and I don’t have any memories of the visit. But I grew up always knowing I had an uncle in WWII, and that his name was Alex Penkala, Jr. For a number of years, I thought he had been killed on D-day. I’m not quite sure why, because other family members knew he had been killed in Bastogne, although they didn’t know the specific circumstances surrounding the death. It wasn’t something people talked about much.

  Then one day in the early 1990s, I got a phone call from my mother. My cousin Jimmy Lichatowich was in a bookstore and had picked up a copy of Band of Brothers. He called my mom and said, “Guess what, your brother’s in this book!” I went down to the bookstore and picked up four copies, one for me, one for my mom, and two for other relatives. Everyone in our family read the book cover to cover. This was the first time our family found out the specific circumstances surrounding his death. From then on we began to research his life in more earnest. We talked to everyone we could who knew him. When the miniseries aired a few years later, it turned into a big family project. Everybody came over and we all watched each episode together, listing out the different scenes where my uncle was featured. As we were watching, my mom said, “I’m so glad they got somebody who was Polish to play him.”

  “Well, Mom,” I said, “Tim Matthews”—the actor who played Alex—“could very well be Polish, but actually he’s British.”

  “Well, he sure looks Polish to me,” Mom said.

  We went to the Easy Company reunion in Phoenix right after the miniseries. It was very well attended, and we talked to a lot of the vets there. We went to the next three reunions in a row.

  When the Emmys came out, Merav Brooks from HBO invited family members to come to the celebration. HBO paid for our hotel rooms and meals. One of my cousins, Tim Penkala, and his wife live in San Diego, and he went to the Emmys to represent the family. They had a ball, and said everybody was so happy to meet them. His dad was Alex’s brother, who served in the Pacific as a tailgunner on a B-24. He got a Purple Heart and came back. In 2005 we went to Europe to dedicate a monument at Bastogne with our uncle’s name on it. Tim went along on that trip, too.

  This is what we’ve found out about my uncle’s life.

  Tenth of Thirteen Children

  To start at the beginning, my uncle’s parents, Mary and Alex Penkala Sr., emigrated to the US from Poland in 1907. They knew each other back in Poland, then came to the States—I don’t know if this was separately or together—and were married in 1908 in South Bend, Indiana. I found my grandfather’s name in the Ellis Island information, but have never found my grandmother’s. The problem is, no one is quite sure how she spelled her last name. It is either Mary Kinski or Mary Kencki, or perhaps spelled some other way, so that makes it more difficult. Basically they were just looking for a better life. In Eastern Europe they had been starving. They came to South Bend because there were people there whom they already knew.

  Mary and Alex Sr. moved to Taylor Spring, Illinois, in 1910 where he worked as a coal miner. A few years later, around 1918, they moved back around South Bend, where he worked for Studebaker. He wasn’t well educated and had only a third grade education. Obviously, their original language was Polish. I remember my grandfather: his English wasn’t that great, even late in life.

  Mary began having children soon after they were married and gave birth to thirteen children over the next twenty years, nine girls and four boys. My uncle, Alex M. Penkala Jr., was born August 30, 1924, the tenth of the thirteen children. Even to this day the family refers to him as Junior. My mother, Evelyn (her married name is Tatay), was born in 1921 and was one of Alex’s older sisters. Today, my mom and the youngest girl are the only ones still alive from the thirteen kids in the family. My mother is eighty-eight. My Aunt Rose is eighty-two.

  In 1928, Mary died in childbirth with her thirteenth child. The child, a boy, survived and was given to relatives to be cared for and raised under another name. After Mary died, the dad and the older daughters raised the family.

  The family was devoutly Catholic. Sometime in the early 1920s, the family lived in a house near Notre Dame University, where Alex Sr. worked. As the girls got older, they went to work at Notre Dame in various jobs. Alex Jr. worked at Notre Dame also, when he came of age. During the Depression, the family wasn’t rich by any means, but they were better off than a lot of people because of the steady work. All the kids spoke Polish first, then picked up English outside the
home and at school. All of Alex’s brothers and sisters were bilingual.

  I have talked to people who knew Alex Jr. when he was young. He was a muscular, active kid, but not really talkative. He loved sports and played football and baseball, and was built on the shorter side, like the rest of the males in the family, about five-foot-seven.

  Notre Dame owned a farm close to the campus. Alex and his friends would sneak to the farm and climb up the hayloft. A friend of Alex’s told me they would build tunnels and forts out of hay bales. “We used candles and matches,” the man said, “it’s a wonder we didn’t burn ourselves up.”

  When I was growing up, there were a couple of aunts who lived within walking distance of Notre Dame, and I used to play in the same barn that Alex Jr. played in when he was a kid.

  From Cook to Paratrooper

  Alex Jr. attended South Bend Catholic High School. My mother says he was a junior in high school when he enlisted, but his papers said he had only one year of high school. It wasn’t unusual in those days for guys to go to high school for a semester or a year, then, if money was needed or if they got bored, they dropped out or worked for a year, then went back. So Alex could have easily been an eighteen-year-old sophomore in high school when he enlisted. I don’t think high schools were very particular of a kid’s age in those days.

  His papers, which I got a copy of, read that he enlisted on February 27, 1943. For his civilian occupation, it lists “motorcycle mechanic or packer high explosives, munitions worker, or tool room keeper, or stock control clerk, or stock clerk.” I’m not sure that’s all the things he did, or if they put in a number that fit all these occupations. I know he did some work for Notre Dame, but other than that, I’m not sure exactly what.