All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

44: Smile

The M1903 Springfield, known colloquially as the M1903A4, took some getting used to. Posey felt she was a master of the M1 Garand by this point - she could do strapping, windage, elevation, aiming, and firing without a second thought, and all to a reliable degree of accuracy. Sharpshooters, however, didn't shoot with standard issue semi-automatic rifles and thus an upgrade was in order.

The sergeant training her hadn't been nearly as much help as Shifty had. Posey had sought him out in First Platoon's barracks prior to her first lesson in sharpshooting, and he'd unloaded unto her all of the wisdom he could think of when put on the spot - tips on how to work around a frequently fogged-up scope and on how to adjust the firing positions to advantage with a slightly bigger rifle, amongst other things. Things which, incidentally, the sergeant left out when training her.

Posey spent every bit of free time she could at the rifle range, becoming acquainted with this new weapon which would inevitably be the difference between living or dying on the battlefield. How different things were this time around compared to when she'd first started training to use the M1 back at Toccoa. She felt about a hundred years old compared to then.

Incidentally, she felt about a hundred years old compared to the replacements, too, even though she knew some of them were older than her. Posey cringed to think what her brother must have thought of her before she'd seen her first lot of combat, back when she'd been all bright-eyed optimism and thoughtless naïveté. She could finally understand why he'd drilled into her how bad it was going to be; these replacements didn't have the faintest of clues what they were in for.

Training picked up back up again to accommodate for the replacements' lack of it. Indeed, after D-Day, when it had become apparent that they'd be needing an awful lot of replacements, the replacements' training had been cut short and they'd been shipped across the Atlantic as soon as possible. The veterans were suffering for it now; long, gruelling hours of field training reminded Posey starkly of Camp Mackall, but now she knew that these simulations were mere mirages of the real thing. One could never be properly prepared for combat without having seen it for themselves.

Between training for a promotion and training for yet more combat, the undisputed highlight of being back in England was when various of the wounded men of the company began to filter back in.

"Lip!" cried Luz upon catching sight of Lipton entering the barracks one evening.

Posey felt her first real smile in days begin to spread across her face; Carwood Lipton, a gentle and caring soul as he was, was certainly a sight for sore, exhausted eyes.

"How are you doing?" Posey asked immediately, rising from her place on her bunk to greet him by the door.

Lipton turned to her and offered half a smile. Immediately, Posey's eyes fell upon the scar cutting the right side of his face in half, an angry red horizontal line goose-stepping from his nose all the way back to his ear. Her smile faded somewhat, but if Lip noticed he didn't say anything.

"Been doing just fine, Wells," Lipton replied softly, still wearing that kind smile of his. Posey wiped the sadness from her expression and beamed, glad to hear he was okay. "How are you doing?" he went on to ask. "Heard you got hit as well."

Posey shrugged. "A lot better, thank you. I don't have nearly as cool a scar to show for it as you do."

Lipton laughed and shook his head before the rest of Second Platoon's veterans crowded around him, patting him on the back and shaking his hand vigorously.

It was similar every time one of the wounded returned, even if they weren't part of Second Platoon but especially if they were. Never before had Posey experienced anything like the unbridled joy she felt at every man coming safely home from the hospital. The affection she felt for each of them was alien to her. Just like when she'd thought she'd be leaving them after reaching London the first time, Posey was struck by how connected she felt to each of them. She was part of something, here, and she felt it was something really special. Something worthwhile. She felt she'd give her life for these men and knew they'd do the same for her.