A Company of Heroes

by Marcus Brotherton

  I think too much of that good man was left overseas. The big theme of my dad’s life was that he should have sought help. Things could have been different. I believe that. Things can be different—I think anyone coming home from war needs to hear that.

  12

  ROBERT RADER

  Interviews with Donald Rader, son, Robin Rader, daughter, and Lucille Rader, widow

  Robert Rader was mentioned in the original book but not portrayed in the miniseries. Nonetheless, he was an integral part of Easy Company. His family has always been proud of him and enjoys telling his story. Robert was one of the few vets who talked openly about the war to his family, though not in great detail. He stood tall his whole life, and his family thanks him for being a positive example. This is his story.

  Seventy-Nine Cents a Day

  Robert Rader was born October 9, 1923, in Manchester, a small town on the Ohio River. His mother had family who fought in the Revolutionary War, and they were given land along the river as payment. His father was in the All-American Division in WWI, fought in five major battles in Europe, and was wounded and gassed. After the war, he worked as a stone-cutter for cemetery markers, and times were very hard financially. They lived along a road and if someone’s rooster got hit by a car, they were out there quick to retrieve it for the dinner pot. Robert’s father was in poor health after the war and passed away in 1942, just before his son went into the service. He gave him the simple, sound advice, “Just do your job and come home.”

  Robert grew up during the Depression. He was one of six children. Still in school, he, along with his older brothers, enlisted in the Ohio National Guard, basically so they could get food and the rest of the food in the family could go to the youngsters. Robert was sixteen when he enlisted with the Guard. They made seventy-nine cents a day.

  Pearl Harbor happened in 1941 while Robert was in the National Guard. Right after that, the Guard discovered he was underage and kicked him out. Fortunately, they gave him an honorable discharge. The certificate meant he didn’t have to go into the war. He went back to high school and graduated in 1942, the first in his family.

  Parachutes and Lardy Cakes

  Robert and two hometown friends, Don Hoobler and William Howell, volunteered for the 101st. It was Hoobler’s idea to join the paratroopers. The idea of the extra money appealed to the men. They also wanted to be the best.

  Robert had grown up with Don Hoobler. They played baseball, swam in the Ohio River together, and stole watermelons from the other side to bring back. Robert always enjoyed sports. He was a skinny kid, six feet, two inches tall, and actually gained weight during the war. In high school he played football, basketball and baseball. His school was so small that if you didn’t play football, you weren’t allowed to play any other sports.

  After the friends enlisted, they were sent to Camp Toccoa. Robert was with the 101st from beginning to end. Bill Guarnere gave him the nickname “Rook,” but Robert wasn’t a chess player. His family speculates it was loosely the Italian version of his last name.

  The family has a picture of Robert, Hoobler, and Howell at Toccoa. They were country boys and called themselves the “three hillbillies.” Others thought they talked funny with their Appalachian twangs. They palled around with a guy from Colorado named Bill Dukeman. Howell was blown out of a foxhole in Bastogne, wounded, but lived and made it home. Hoobler accidently shot himself in the leg with a souvenir Luger. The bullet hit a main artery and he bled to death. Robert talked about Hoobler’s death every once in a while after the war. It shook him up quite badly. Robert’s son, Donald, is named in honor of Don Hoobler, and his son’s middle name is Dukeman, in honor of Bill Dukeman, who also died in the war. “It’s always been an honor to me to share these men’s names,” Donald said, “I’ve never taken it for granted, what they gave for our country.”

  The men trained a lot. Robert told his family about the big spaghetti lunch they had at Toccoa, and how the men puked it up later because Captain Sobel made them run up Mt. Currahee right afterward. Robert also told his family that despite his dislike for the man, he respected Sobel too, because Captain Sobel helped make the men tough so they could survive the war.

  Robert enjoyed parachute training, particularly jumping out of the high training tower. He liked it so much he did it more times than was required. He rose to the rank of staff sergeant and became the push master, the last person out of the plane. During one training jump, his chute didn’t deploy properly. He was the last to jump, but the first to hit the ground. He got in trouble because whoever was in charge didn’t believe he had problems with this chute.

  On another practice jump, he was hit in the head by an ammunition holder, a large metal box. The piece of equipment had broken loose and was falling while the men were jumping, which wasn’t uncommon. Robert suffered a detached retina, but was otherwise okay.

  The men were transported across the Atlantic for more training in Aldbourne, England. Sometimes during a practice jump, men landed some distance from the rest of the unit, and needed to hike back to their unit on their own. When that happened, the men sometimes took advantage of the extra time and scrounged for lardy cakes along the way, a type of English donut made out of fried flour, butter, cinnamon and sugar. They dropped in at the local towns, picked up the cakes, and ate them in the woods on the way back.

  Robert talked about free time in Aldbourne. Sometimes the men played basketball and baseball. They met a lot of townspeople this way. Years after the war, Robert visited Aldbourne and still knew a lot of people there. On their last practice jump, the majority of the people of Aldbourne came out to wish them good-bye.

  Battered and Frozen

  On the plane ride over to Normandy, a shell blasted through their plane’s body and flew directly between Robert and Johnny Martin, so close they could feel the burn. They talked about it for years after. Later, they found out the plane they were in took 250 hits while they were flying to Normandy.

  Robert made the jump from an elevation of under two hundred feet. The green light that indicated when they were to get out of the plane had been shot off. So they used a bell to tell the men when to jump. The co-pilot was wounded. He took shrapnel in the leg, and there was a miscommunication with the pilot, who thought all the men were already out of the plane. The pilot turned the plane around and started heading back to England with them all inside. That’s when they all bailed out.

  Robert wore a leg bag during the jump that flew off as soon as he was outside the plane. He lost his weapons in the jump, hit the ground hard, and hurt his back. He landed in a cow pasture next to a sharp pole. Later he was found to have three fractured vertebrae. Nothing was ever done for it and he continued on. The first person he ran into after landing was Burr Smith, who gave him a cricket, a .45, and a sack of grenades.

  Robert had landed near Ste. Mère-Église. He and some men fought a minor firefight, not against the Germans themselves, but against some white Russians and Polish troops who were fighting on Germany’s side because they hated Stalin more than the Nazis.

  When the assault against Brécourt Manor happened, Robert and others were deployed between the 88s at the manor and the beach to help offer protection for the assault at the manor, making sure that no Germans stationed near the beach ran back to help during the fray.

  Near Carentan, Robert’s squad came across a bivouacked group of Hitler Youth, who engaged in a firefight with the men. Robert told his family the youths yelled in German, “I will die for the Führer.” The men had no choice but to take them out, which really shook Robert up. After the firefight, he saw the bodies, both of the German troops and also the Americans that had been killed. Robert vowed at that moment to spend the rest of his life devoted to helping kids. Later he made good on that vow and became a schoolteacher. After a month of fighting in Normandy, the men went back to Aldbourne.

  The next big jump was Market-Garden in Holland. They jumped in daylight Sunday, September 17, 1944, and were in constant contact
with the enemy for seventy-nine days. At one point the men were hunkered down in a barn. A man was cleaning his .45. It discharged and hit Robert in his elbow. He went to the aid station, but they were unable to ship him out due to the enemy’s presence. So they bandaged it up and he went back to the line. Shortly after, he was in a bayonet charge.

  After Holland, the men went to Mourmelon. Somebody made up a vat of hot chocolate, but something was wrong with it, so whoever drank it got diarrhea. On the way up to Bastogne in the back of a truck, Robert said he was feeling very sick, still from the chocolate.

  In Bastogne, the men were surrounded and underequipped, with a lack of winter clothing and ammunition. Robert’s eyelids actually froze open once. His feet, legs, and hands grew so cold he could hardly feel any of his extremities. He took a bullet in the hip, but was so cold he didn’t realize it until a CAT scan in 1987 showed he had been hit.

  Robert and Hoobler volunteered for guard duty on Christmas Eve as a Christmas present to the rest of the guys. Hoobler was a corporal, and they usually didn’t let two noncoms pull guard duty together because they were too far away from the line. Robert told his family that the night was very cold. The men lay in the snow in the dark and whispered about Christmas dinner back home and what their families were doing.

  Near the fighting at Foy, Robert instructed his squad to dig their foxholes out in a field, not near the trees. A couple of men in his squad thought he was crazy. They were going to get killed out in the open like that. But when the shells came in, they flew right over and straight into the trees. So his squad wasn’t hurt.

  From there, the men went to Hitler’s Nest, and then to Austria by war’s end. Robert was discharged in November 1945, and offered a Purple Heart, but he turned it down. “How could I receive it when so many others were wounded so badly?” he told his family. Robert had numerous scars, the elbow wound, various shrapnel wounds, the bullet in his hip, and various nicks and cuts from ordnances that went off near him. He was awarded other medals, including two Bronze Stars for bravery.

  Strict but Fair

  As mentioned, Robert was one of the few who gained weight during the war. When he came home it was at night, and, not wanting to wake his family, he slipped into the home unannounced and hit the sheets up in his room. The next morning, his mother didn’t recognize him. A lot of soldiers were coming and going in those days, and she had been boarding many of them. When she learned it was her son, it was a grand celebration.

  All during the war, Robert had saved his money and sent it home to his mother for the family to use. But she hadn’t spent a dime of it, so when he returned home all his money was waiting for him.

  He opted to use the GI Bill and matriculated at Morehead State College on a sports scholarship, but his legs were shot, still numb from Bastogne days. So he transferred to Cedarville College in Ohio and received his bachelor’s in education. He played some baseball and basketball for Cedarville.

  Cedarville is a Baptist school, but Robert wasn’t religious at all. A group of his buddies went there, which is the only reason he went. By rule, the school was “dry,” but Robert helped to rig up a pulley system to lift kegs of beer up to his third floor dorm room. During winter he put his beer on the room’s window ledge to keep it cold. He and his buddies ate a lot of pickled eggs, and Robert regaled his family with stories of going to chapel and expelling the smelly results of beer and eggs. Evidently the college put up with his high jinks, for Robert graduated.

  He became a teacher and later a coach. Following the lead of friends, he moved from Ohio to California around 1950 where he met Lucille, a California girl and nurse. She and Robert met on a blind date and were married on Valentine’s Day, 1953. Friends helped Robert land a job at the California School for Boys, which led to a teaching job in San Miguel, then another job in the Paso Robles School District, where Robert taught for the last twenty-five years until he retired.

  Two children were born to the family, a boy and a girl, Donald and Robin. For fun, the family took trips to Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Canada, and Easy Company reunions. They were a frugal family, and every day when they were travelling they stopped at little roadside shops and bought Vienna sausages, Ritz crackers, and red delicious apples, Robert’s favorite lunch.

  They often visited Easy Company men. Bull Randleman’s family was part of regular life. Mike Ranney came down from San Francisco to visit several times. Salve Matheson kept in touch. George Luz Sr. and Robert wrote letters back and forth. Bill Guarnere came to visit. Leo Matz, who vowed that if he made it out of the war alive would become a priest, was in Robert’s squad and remained a good friend after the war. After he became a priest, he visited Robert several times, including right after Robert’s second heart surgery.

  In 1965, when Donald was seven years old, the family attended an Easy Company reunion at Fort Campbell. Young Donald got the chance to shoot an M-60, a machine gun so large he had to lay on the ground to shoot it. Robin was five years older, but, despite her pleas, wasn’t allowed to shoot the gun.

  Robert coached freshman and JV basketball, and was very proud of the cross country teams he coached. During the ten years he coached cross country, seven of his teams went to the California Interscholastic Federation Finals. He had two All-Americans run for him, brothers Eric and Ivan Huff. He was very proud of them.

  People described Robert as a strict but fair teacher. He didn’t stand for any nonsense. He developed a strong reputation among other teachers, and soon all the rowdy kids—the ones the other teachers couldn’t control—were sent to him. He was known to get a kid’s attention by throwing the eraser against a chalkboard. Some of his classroom management techniques would never fly these days. In one instance he actually picked up a rowdy boy and threw him out the door. To this day, his former students say a firm hand was exactly what they needed. When Robert started teaching educationally handicapped students, he softened considerably, and didn’t do any eraser throwing then.

  In the early days of his teaching career, he actually worked two jobs. He taught school during the week. On weekends he was the assistant manager at the Paso Robles Airport. He fueled planes when they came in and kept an eye on things. He didn’t earn Social Security with the school district in those days, but he did with the airport job, and he wanted that for his family.

  Robert was also on the town’s volunteer fire department for about a decade. One night in 1963 a large hotel caught fire in town. Robert fought the fire all night, came home in the morning, took a shower, ate breakfast, and went to work at school for the day.

  Lucille worked as a nurse, then when the kids came along she stayed home, (which is when Robert worked two jobs). When the kids grew older, Lucille went back to work. Robert picked up more coaching then, which he considered a second job. For a hobby, he occasionally played softball in town or went fishing, but mostly he worked and coached.

  Robert seemed to adjust well to life after the war. Why? “His family helped keep him grounded, for sure,” Donald said. “I think the contact with his buddies was also very helpful—writing letters, going to reunions. He enjoyed quality activities where he could disconnect from the stress of life and his memories and get refreshed.”

  Robin remembered him struggling with memories of the war. “During Christmas he could get strangely quiet for days at a time,” Robin said. “I asked him about it and finally he told me that Christmastime always brought back memories of Don Hoobler’s death. In spite of the memories, he chose to continue on. The war did affect him, yes, but he was always conscious to not withdraw from his responsibilities.”

  Honorable to the End

  Robert retired in 1981. Despite his robust career, he suffered from poor health through most of his life, mostly due to the war. Over the years he had two heart surgeries with nine bypasses. He lost a kidney, and had an aortic aneurism and gallbladder problems. He had stomach ulcers, and doctors eventually cut away half his stomach. But Robert remained determined. Once, immediately after
a surgery, he went golfing and hit a hole in one on the first hole.

  When he retired, he enjoyed playing golf with his wife. They also walked a lot together, and travelled to Paris and Holland. He liked to fish. He wrote a lot of letters to his fellow Easy Company men, and he enjoyed keeping in touch with them. He always signed his letters to his war buddies: “Robert J. Rader, here. Be good. Be careful. Sleep warm.” He loved watching sports on TV and even bought two TVs for the living room so he could watch two sporting events at the same time.

  Toward the end, when he couldn’t physically keep up with things, life became more daunting. Robert needed to be on dialysis, and when that happened he moved from sitting in his recliner to lying on the couch. It was a different lifestyle toward the end. But even then, he didn’t retreat. He kept up with his letter writing and calling his friends, keeping his focus on staying in touch with people and staying as active as he could.

  Robert was on dialysis one day a week for nearly two years. His one kidney was still working, but his heart was failing. Lucille and Robert could still travel then, as long as Robert watched his diet. Then his other kidney failed, and the dialysis was upped to three times a week. That was the beginning of the end. Robert started to lose weight and grew very thin, 123 pounds on his six-foot-two-inch frame. The last six months he had no body fat and was extremely frail. The heater in the house ran all the time. He kept watching sports and writing letters whenever he could. He had some better days than others. Somewhere during that time there was a frank discussion with family members, and Robert decided he didn’t want anything to be prolonged. “No more,” he said simply.