Edward Heffron > Quotes

“When someone takes a shell for you, it's hard to forget about it.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“I put my hand on Bill's shoulder and told him, yeah the sacrifice was worth it. He said, 'Yeah, I think so, too.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“The heroes are the kids who gave 100 percent; they gave their lives. The heroes are the mothers who gave up a son, who carried him for nine months, and raised him to do right, and he does right, and at eighteen, he goes to fight for his country, and he dies doing right. That's a hero.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“The first time we went back to Bastogne, thank God it wasn't winter. The foxholes are still there. There's some debris lying in the holes. The outlines from the baseplate of the mortar is still there, where Malarkey had it set up.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“The reunions have always been more fun than serious. When you're with the guys, you're eighteen year old again.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“As bad off as we were, as cold as we were, as hungry as we were, as sick as we were, I don't think an American Airborne soldier could throw down his gun.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Every June we think of D-Day, every September we think of Holland, every December we think of Bastogne.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“As bad as it was—and you paid a heavy price for being a paratrooper, believe me, always put on the front lines under bad conditions—and even with the emotional scars you live with, I'm glad I did it. All goodness came out of it. I would never have had the opportunity to meet guys like Winters, Guarnere, Toye, Ed Joint and Joe Lesiewksi, Malarkey, J.D. Henderson, Shifty Powers, Chuck Grant, One Lung McClung, Compton, Mike McMann, and most important, Muck, Penkala, Campbell, and Julian, who never came back. Guarnere I don't have to mention, he's nuts, he always let's me know he's around! It makes you feel good that you were with these guys all over Europe in some tough spots, guys you shared a hole with, and guys who saved your life ...”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Do you remember the other day when you told me about you and Muck receiving communion up in the woods in the snow in Bastogne, and what you said to Muck—that if you died, you would die in a state of grace?" He said to me, 'Babe, I never forgot you telling me that. So when we shot that scene with Father Maloney giving communion, I put that in myself. I turned to the character Babe, and said, 'Well Heffron, if we die, we'll die in a state of grace.' Richard Speight did that on his own. That really affected me.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“If you ever hear Bill's sayings, he copies them from me. If you offer him something to eat, he says, 'No thanks, I just had a peanut.' Well, he got that from me. It's supposed to be funny, but he says it constantly, so it gets on my nerves. Bill says, 'I'm sorry you ever told me that one.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“What was strange was when Frank Hughes or the other actors would talk to Robin Laing, and he'd say, 'Hey, Babe,' or 'Hey, Heffron.' It made me stop and look around.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Bill was good to my daughter while I was sick. I was lying in a hospital bed for almost a year, and the doctors didn't expect me to walk again. Bill took care of us. He came to see me every day.

(Bill adds: 'You owe me for parking. Sixteen dollars a day for a year! He was on so many drugs, he was nuttier than a fruitcake. Coco loco!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen, or that it wasn't as bad as they say, no, it was worse than they say. What we saw, what these Germans did, it was worse than you can possibly imagine.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“He had the paratrooper uniform on because he didn't have time to change, he had to come right from the set to meet us. Bill shook his head, and said, 'I know who you are.' He looked just like Bill as a young man. Frank said, 'Boy, oh, boy if you guys ain't got it made when you were kids—I got all the broads coming up to me. You guys must have had a picnic. The uniform draws 'em like flies.' I said, Christ, you even sound like Bill!" He said, 'I have to stay in character." He had to stay in character!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“It was snowing, and Father Maloney gave us a pep talk. 'You're heroes. It's a pleasure to be your spiritual guide, and I'm proud to be part of the 506th.' He used the hood of the jeep as an altar, and we knelt in the snow to get communion.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“At about two or three in the morning, we boarded the trucks. All we had were our regular fatigue clothes on, we had no combat gear, no winter gear, no winter underwear; they sent us up as we were. No supplies, no ammo.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Eddie Stein, he was my assistant machine gunner and my friend, he broke down next to me. He said, 'Babe, can you believe what man can do to man?”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“Well, one time I had a German general surrendered to me.'

My brother jumped ten feet off the chair. 'Dad, we told you he'd come up with stories!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“I'm telling you I never seen men with a look like that in my life, running, scared to death. No helmets, no weapons. They threw their guns down. The kids were all our of breath, yelling, 'Don't go up there, there are so many Germans, they're gonna kill everybody!' We said, 'That's our job!' They said, 'But there's a million of them!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“At one point, we were caught in a ditch, the krauts were firing at us, and Joe Toye wanted me to return the fire. He told me to throw my gun up on the ridge. As I went to put my head up out of the ditch, Bill kicked me in the left shoulder and knocked me back down into the ditch. He saved me from taking a shot, while he stayed right out there in the middle of it. I learned pretty quickly what kind of soldier Bill Guarnere was.”
― Edward Heffron

“We went up on trailers, and as we drove up, it rained, it snowed, and these trailers were like boxcars, open on the top, no shelter, and it's December, and it's Belgium's coldest winter in thirty years. We didn't know that at the time, we just knew it was cold. So we were wet and cold to start with. But we didn't worry about it. We were tough. We were kids.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“We felt the chaplains were, like the medics, the real heroes.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“We were supposed to count to ten and then the chute would open, but I never counted, never met a guy that did. One guy said: 'I say a Hail Mary, what the hell is counting gonna do?!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“He was wild, yes, but in the paratroopers you needed the fearless ones who were willing to do whatever it takes. They didn't call him Wild Bill for nothing. He'd stand up when everyone was crouched down and run straight into enemy fire, yelling, 'Let's go, let's go! They couldn't hit the side of a barn!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“As I walked on our old training field, the strangest thing happened. I could hear plain as day the men counting cadence, double-timing, rifle bolts being pulled back, the guys shouting and kidding each other.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“One funny thing happened after the book came out; My brother Shad called me and said, 'I want to apologize. I just read the book. You did have a German general surrender to you!”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends

“The German officers' favorite. It got me sick. And Eddie, too, he started crying more. I thought to myself, imagine if that was your own sister, or your daughter.”
― Edward Heffron, Brothers In Battle, Best of Friends