A Sad Response

     Herbert Sobel gained notoriety through the publication of Band of Brothers and the following HBO production of the same name. This man, too, bore the consequences of his military experience long after the war ended. Compare and contrast James Stockdale and Herbert Sobel.
     Bitterness destroyed his life rather than memories of combat or lost friends. His experience could be anyone's - that is what makes his story sobering. What will we do when wronged by others?

     Sobel commanded the training of Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division at a place called Toccoa in the Georgia mountains. Sobel earned the reputation of a hard driving and strict leader who arbitrarily dispensed discipline and harsh treatment of the men with seemingly no regard for them either as fellow men or fellow soldiers.The Company's website reports the following: "Sobel was a strict disciplinarian, handing out cruel punishments for seemingly harmless infractions of the rules. During training in England, he threatened to court-martial Lieut. Richard Winters for his alleged failure to inspect a latrine at the appointed hour. In response, Easy's non-commissioned officers offered to turn in their stripes out of loyalty to Winters. Shortly before the company headed to France on D-Day, Sobel was reassigned and became commander of a parachute jumping school. Despite Sobel's unpopularity, many credit Easy Company's success in battle to the rigorous standards that he set for his men."
     He carried bitterness towards the Company relentlessly through his post war life. The success of Dick Winters, and the regard the men had for him, may have paricularly eaten at him. He refused attempts at communication. He refused invitations to reunions. One member of the Company paid his annual dues for membership in the 101st Airborne association. His marriage failed and his two boys were estranged.
      The end was not pretty. He botched, according to Stephen Ambrose, an attempt to shoot himself. Neither his family nor any member of Easy Company attended his funeral.
      Contrast the bitterness at perceived wrongs which were no wrongs to the response of those men who emerged better men, not bitter, from their imprisonment in the Hanoi Hilton  (prior post).
      Consider the words of Christ from Matt 6.14-15: "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."