Pitschen ma en gamba - Small, but powerful [A Band of Brothers Story]

The going gets tougher

Jump training was something Ella found highly amusing. It was very important that they landed correctly, she understood that, but she still felt absolutely ridiculous jumping off a platform with a full pack and counting out loud. At one point, she had to bite down hard on her lip because the urge to laugh got so strong.

When it was her turn to stand in the door, though, her face was totally blank.

"Go!", came Sobel's command.

Ella jumped and counted: "1000, 2000, 3000, 4000." Her feet hit the ground and she let herself drop to absorb the fall, just like she had been taught. As per usual, she ignored Sobel's disparaging comment. She had gotten so used to them by now, she barely registered them anymore.

She got up and cleared the way, moving to stand with her comrades and watching the others. They all winced in unison when Walter "Smokey" Gordon basically fell head first from the platform.

"You just broke both your legs, Private Gordon!", Sobel shouted, sounding even more exasperated than usual, "are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Smokey stood up and shook his head. "No sir!"

He came over to them, looking a bit flustered.

"That was a hard landing, Smokey. Anything hurt?", Ella asked, genuinely concerned. Instinctively, her eyes flicked up and down his body, searching for injuries.

He smiled bashfully. "No, it's alright, Shorty. Thanks for asking though."

***

The medical training now became more hands on. They still had lectures, but they had now moved on from dummies and puppets to living 'test subjects', as their instructor morbidly called the people they practiced things like applying bandages or setting up IVs on.

The instructors were very pleased with the Easy company medics. Although each had their own personality, method and style, they were efficient, calm under pressure and able to think on their feet, all valuable qualities for a good combat medic.

They were especially impressed by Ella's natural ability to focus on multiple things at once. She could be clamping the artery of a panicked man, while giving directions to the inexperienced men assisting her, and still manage to make conversation with her patient on top of that, calming him down and distracting him from the pain.

Lieutenant Christian Everett, who was often overseeing the medics' training, even mentioned that in his regular progress report to Lt Col Sink.

The men also started going through the obstacle course in more than just their PT gear. Ella had done it many times already under Sobel's watchful eye as punishment for perceived infractions. Her fellow paratroopers had sometimes 'casually' walked by and stopped to cheer her on has she had raced from one obstacle to the next, sometimes shouting loud enough that Sobel's jabs faded into the background.

Now, they all had to do it. Yelling encouragements to each other as they went, everybody tried to get through the course as quickly as possible.

Hopping in and out of the rope squares with their hands behind their heads was the easy part. Ella had had plenty of practice at home already, playing jump rope with her brother as kids. Crawling through the narrow wooden tunnel wasn't that hard either for her, after all she was small and wiry. Somersaulting out of the tunnel, the next obstacle was the wall.

And boy did Ella hate that wall!

It was perhaps just over 7 feet high and during her punishment runs, this had usually been the one where she had lost the biggest amount of time. After all, that thing was almost 2 feet taller than her. But thanks to all the times she'd been through this course, the girl now knew exactly how to overcome the obstacle.