![]() ![]() They had parachuted into the area the day before, September 17, 1944, as part of Operation Market Garden, the Allied attempt to cross the Rhine River with a combined armored and airborne force. It was their second day of combat in the Netherlands. Mampre gave himself a shot of morphine and then lay down next to Brewer and in his best bedside manner asked, “Lieutenant, are you dead? ‘Cause if you’re dead, I’m leaving.” “No,” Brewer whispered, “but I don’t know why not.” As bullets stitched the ground, Mampre told Brewer he would stay with him. “My leg was opened up like a roast beef,” he said, but, like Brewer’s neck, his leg did not bleed badly. Then Mampre felt like a mule had kicked him in his left leg. Staff Sergeant Al Mampre, of Oak Park, Illinois, joined Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, when it first formed in 1942, and was promoted to battalion medic before he shipped out to Europe. Three other paratroopers dropped around them, victims of the sniper’s aim. Bullets kicked up dust around Mampre and Brewer. Then another bullet clipped the other medic’s heel, and he took off for the safety of the trench. Mampre heard what sounded like a bottle breaking and looked up at the IV, but it was still whole. The German sniper, occupying one of four houses across the field, had targeted the three Americans. After struggling to find a good vein in Brewer’s arm, he injected a plasma needle and held the IV bottle aloft.Īnother medic sprinted out to join Mampre. Mampre sprinkled sulfa powder on the wound and covered it with a bandage. Despite the severity of the wound, it did not bleed much. ![]() A sniper’s bullet had gone through Brewer’s neck below his chin. “I’ll take care of you,” he told the wounded officer. When he reached Lieutenant Bob Brewer, who was sprawled out in a field, he sat down next to him. But Mampre had his mission, and he knew what needed to be done. “You’re crazy to go out there!” a paratrooper shouted to medic Al Mampre as he bolted from a trench outside of the Dutch town of Eindhoven. ![]()
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