we're on each other's team [band of brothers / hbo war]

19: points

UPDATED 05/15/2022. Some scenes have been altered.

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Austria was beautiful.

Snow-capped mountains, grassy fields and valleys, beautiful lakes, it was just breathtaking. If you could only take one picture, it could not capture the beauty of the country.

While Austria was beautiful, the people were not. Austria was the true SS country, right next to Germany. You saw SS everywhere you went. They were either dead in the streets or they would be killed by Allied forces. They didn't surrender. They were defiant as hell. The citizens were as well. They did not want to give up their homes to the soldiers, but, as always, Major Winters laid down the law for them. He wanted the best for his soldiers and by God, you better give it to them.

Besides the issue with the civilians, Austria was pretty laid back, Madison thought. Easy Company's main job was occupational duty. There were always some bumps along the way, but it was mostly a smooth task.

Madison often found herself working in POW camps and DP sections. She was rarely put on patrols in Austria, which irritated her. She's been through hell and back, what would be so bad if a few of the SS wanted to pick a fight and she was there? She was a soldier, damn it. She may be a medic, but she knew how to defend herself and her comrades.

While Madison wasn't around the SS, she did take care of the POWs as requested. The POWs were mostly enlisted men of the German Army, and the soldiers varied in age and condition. One could be twenty-four and have a nasty infection, while the other could be forty-five and have his eyelids frozen off. None of her patients picked a fight with her, unless they were stubborn and insisted that they were fine. She just shoved them back down into their cot and ordered them around. It was pretty easy and, honestly, kind of fun. For once, she was in charge.

One of the things that disturbed Madison the most, however, were the children she encountered. While she was used to seeing children in the DP camps, there were quite a few in some of the POW sections she worked in. Now, Madison was aware that there were children fighting for Hitler, as some of her comrades saw those children in the battlefield. In fact, some of them had to kill those children because they were fighting for Hitler and would have died for him.

What a monster. That old Nazi fuck had people rounded up and slaughtered like animals, and he had the grand idea of forcing children to fight his battles? Everything about the man made Madison burn in anger, and she was so glad she trashed as many of his fascist books as she could at the Eagle's Nest. She even found herself not feeling sorry for looting the Eagle's Nest or the Nazi towns she was in. Hitler and the SS could, quite frankly, get fucked, and Madison hoped that they were all miserable in both life and death.

While seeing children as young as eight years old in those POW camps disturbed Madison, one patient she could clearly remember was of a boy about fourteen or fifteen years old. He was ill and had to get his leg amputated. Madison held the boy's hand, soothing him as the procedure happened.

A part of Madison wanted to scold the boy, telling him that he was too young to be in war, but she knew she was a hypocrite. Madison had recently turned eighteen, and she was about the boy's age when she signed up to be in the Nurse Corps before eventually agreeing to be part of the Airborne. She had spent her teenaged years in the military....was she any better?

Well, it wasn't like she could do anything now. Madison served her time and she didn't regret it, either, even after all the horrors that she's witnessed. She's helped so many people, and she would never regret that.

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Madison didn't even realize it was her birthday when it had passed. She had lost track of time. That usually happened when you were in the military; out in the field and saving lives. You didn't have time to think of yourself and trivial things.