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domineering. There was no give and take. His tone of voice was high-pitched, rasplike. He shouted rather than spoke in a normal way. It just irritated us to no end. Iron discipline the officers could tolerate, but armed with the ultimate authority to dismiss any man in the company, Sobel exceeded the boundaries of acceptable conduct in dealing with citizen-soldiers. If infractions of discipline were not found during inspections, he manufactured deficiencies to prove a point or to emphasize his authority as company commander. To the individual soldiers, Sobel’s propensity to find fault was pure chickenshit, so-named by former infantryman and noted author Paul Fussell because “it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously.”
    At other times, our commander deliberately embarrassed the platoon leaders in front of their men. Not surprisingly, Sobel rapidly emerged as the central target of hate and scorn within Easy Company. One officer summed up our collective appraisal by stating that Sobel was dedicated to doing everything by the book, but he seemed to possess tunnel vision. He could not, or would not, see or anticipate the results of his disciplinary measures on the men. As a result Easy Company gave their loyalty and devotion to their platoon leaders, who in turn took care of their men the best they could and who softened Sobel’s dictatorial behavior. Several troopers, including Richard “Red” Wright, Terrence “Salty” Harris, and Lieutenant Walter Moore,however, sought an escape from Sobel’s wrath and they volunteered for the pathfinders.
    Any relationship between company commander and company officers that existed in Easy Company remained strictly professional. Captain Sobel had no friends within the company and few within the regiment. At the end of the day, he went one way, and we officers went the other, hoping not to run into him at the officers’ club. As training progressed through the first half of 1943, Sobel’s tactical ineptitude, coupled with his increasing paranoid behavior as our overseas deployment neared, led to the total loss of any confidence that remained in his leadership. So traumatic was my own relationship with Captain Sobel that sixty years after the war, it’s still painful remembering my initial meeting with him.
    Why then was Captain Sobel retained in command by Colonel Sink and Major Strayer? I suspect the answer lies in Easy Company’s performance vis-à-vis the other companies within the regiment. Sobel’s hard hand, for better or worse, resulted in a well-disciplined and physically conditioned airborne company. Senior officers tolerated Sobel’s erratic behavior because he produced the desired results. One indicator of Easy Company’s success within the 506th was reflected in the number of company officers who were pulled up to battalion and regimental headquarters. Senior commanders only assign the most talented officers to headquarters staffs. Colonel Sink and Major Strayer were no exception. Within the first eight months of the company’s existence, Lieutenants Matheson, Lavenson, Nixon, and Hester were all reassigned to 2dBattalion staff. Hester, Matheson, and Nixon remained on Strayer’s staff until Colonel Sink advanced them to regimental staff. For Matheson, the call to regiment occurred before D-Day. Hester was transferred to 3rd Battalion in Holland, while Nixon joined regimental staff during Bastogne. Lavenson was severely wounded outside Carentan. For the remainder of the war, every vacancy in battalion staff was filled by an officer from Easy Company. For that, Sobel deserved a portion of the credit. He was a satisfactory training officer, but he was definitelynot a leader of troops. I suspect he did his best, but he was in the wrong job and that was hardly his fault. Having grown up in urban Chicago, he was ill-suited for the outdoor life required for the leader of an elite infantry unit.