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one occasion the military police arrested “Skinny” on a Saturday afternoon for making out with his girlfriend along the railroad tracks. When asked by Sobel to explain his conduct, Sisk replied, “The train was coming, she was coming, and so was I.”
    Suffice it to say Herbert Sobel was a complex and volatile officer, difficult to serve over, impossible to serve under. For those of us who served in the company, he treated us with equal disdain, officers and enlisted men alike. His constant raving that “The Japs are going to get you,” and his “Hi-Yo Silver,” led to widespread snickering behind his back. Never comfortable in a tactical environment, our commander could not read a map, was constantly lost, and tended to panic when confronted with an unexpected situation. As a result, Captain Sobel rapidly lost the respect of the men. The men did what he ordered because they wanted those wings. Yet they never respected him. If he could not lead men on a hike or on a military maneuver, how could he lead Easy Company in combat? His inability to lead by example orremain calm in a crisis soon became questions that permeated the entire company.
    Despite his personal shortcomings, Sobel drove each member of the company to become an elite soldier capable of taking the war to Hitler’s Germany. In that sense, Herbert Maxwell Sobel “made” Easy Company by producing a combat company that acted with a single-minded purpose. Carwood Lipton, who would later receive a battlefield commission in Europe, noted that Easy Company was very similar to the groups of men in every company in Sink’s 506th save one. Yet there was a difference because Easy coalesced to protect itself against Sobel. In that way, Easy ended up a different way than Sobel intended. Sobel drove us hard and he continued driving us when other companies had already fallen out and gone to the showers. While the other commands within the 506th were getting the hot showers and the early food, we were still out there working, taking an additional lap around the track, and standing at attention to see if anybody was moving. Soon other companies knew of Captain Sobel, including the officers throughout the regiment. No one envied us, but Sobel was producing a magnificent company. Having said that, I would be remiss to disregard the contributions of Easy’s first batch of noncommissioned officers who emerged from the ranks: the Carwood Liptons, Joe Toyes, Bill Guarneres, Floyd Talberts, and others.
    In Sobel’s defense he was equally demanding on himself. Charged with converting “civilians” into an effective fighting force in a relatively short time, he permitted himself few luxuries. Shortly after he assumed command of the battalion, Major Strayer remembered one instance when he disciplined the company commanders for not showing up on time for staff meetings. To demonstrate his point, he confined the company commanders to the camp area for an entire weekend. Their wives raised holy hell. Sobel was the only company commanding officer who was always on time and did as he was instructed, therefore he was not penalized. To his credit he also stood up for his men to higher headquarters. Prior to Easy Company’s movement to the port ofembarkation, our battalion commander had the authority to leave any officer behind whom he felt was unsuitable for deployment. When Sobel heard Major Strayer was going to drop one of his officers from the manifest, he went to battalion headquarters and made such a spirited defense that Strayer agreed to keep the officer in the unit and actually pulled him to battalion staff in order to keep him away from troops.
    What bothered Easy Company’s officers, me included, was not Sobel’s emphasis on strict discipline, but his desire to lead by fear rather than example. Each evening he quizzed us on our field manual assignments, which he gave us daily. In his critiques, Sobel was very