Easy packs into a truck and rides away, passing pedestrians who turn out to be 1st battalion's soldiers. Luz bitterly thanks them for crapping in their foxholes. "Enjoy the walk," Randleman laughs, puffing on his omnipresent cigar. Luz passes Donnie a smoke, delighting in the officer's acceptance of this life-threatening vice. Donnie smiles, too, eager for that smooth tar taste and lung-constricting carcinogens. They motor off into the distance as someone calls out, "There they go, Easy Company, riding out again." Except the editors had the good sense to mute the latter part of that line.

"Beyond the wounded and killed, every man at Bastogne suffered. Men unhit by shrapnel and bullets were nevertheless casualties," Stephen Ambrose wrote.

"I'm not sure that anybody who lived through that one hasn't carried with him, in some hidden ways, the scars," Winters has said. "Perhaps that is the factor that helps keep Easy men bonded so unusually close together."