twenty. “He wanted to serve his nation,” Chris said, “And I think he wanted the challenge. My dad was a very competitive man.”
Pat’s journals concur. He described how he and a friend from work talked constantly about “getting into the fighting part of the war.” They went to an Army recruiter’s office during their lunch break at the phone company where they saw a brochure for the Airborne that read, “Jump to the Fight.”
They were convinced the paratroopers were the only way to go.
The Toughest Man at Toccoa
After enlisting, Pat was sent to Toccoa, Georgia, where he wrote that, at first, “the majority of men had little conception of Army life and what was expected of them.” Mostly, “too many men in our ranks were unsuited for the Parachute Infantry,” which prompted heavy washouts. Over time, cohesiveness formed in the unit as the men hardened into soldiers.
“Pat became a paratrooper because he wanted to be the best,” Chris said. “He didn’t just want to be the average ground-pounding grunt, not to take away from that, but he wanted to be in a special unit.” Pat held the physical fitness record at Toccoa. That’s stiff competition—to be the toughest man at Toccoa. The family has a letter from Dick Winters verifying this. In Band of Brothers , the series shows Pat being the goat of training, drinking water on a run when he wasn’t supposed to and having to run up and down Mount Currahee again. “We’ve asked the men who were there if that ever happened,” Gary noted. “They said, ‘Not to Christenson.’”
His young nephew kept a close watch on Pat’s experiences from basic training onward. When Pat was in jump school, he taped his nephew’s picture inside his helmet while making his five qualifying jumps, then commandeered an extra set of jump wings, which he sent home to Gary. “He told me I was a qualified jumper,” Gary said. “With those wings I was the envy of my school. In those days, everybody was well into the war effort. The armed forces were honored by teachers and students alike.”
In spite of the rigorous training, Pat kept a rueful sense of humor. After the unit was sent to Alderbourne, England, for further training, he wrote, “Our training revolved around how to fight every conceivable way, and often, large groups of men gathered at the local pub.” He described the food they ate in England—Brussels sprouts, turnips, and “I think they slipped some horse meat to us from time to time.”
Headquarters staff expected an enemy invasion on England’s airfields, so Lieutenant Winters picked three E Company men to teach unarmed combat to nearby defense units. Pat and the others selected were only privates, so Winters told them to borrow shirts from fellow sergeants in case they were challenged by the trainees. The three E Company men traveled to a nearby air base and taught the defense unit hand-to-hand combat techniques for several days. It was a rough-and-tumble crew, but Pat didn’t back down. He wrote:
After a period of time, a group came to me and exclaimed, ‘Sergeant, no one can get out of this guy’s hold. If this stuff works show us how you’d get away from him.’ There, standing in the middle of the group, was a great big 300-pounder with a smile from ear to ear.
I deliberately paused, directed a cold stare at him, then approached quickly and said, ‘Make your move.’
As soon as I felt his arms around me I immediately collapsed my legs and threw my arms over my head. I slipped out of his grasp and found the back of his neck with my hands. His body was now bent over my back. I jerked hard on the back of his neck. His body, off balance, came flying over my shoulder and struck the ground with a violent thud. Swiftly, I drove my knee into his neck. I had never executed that move as well before or since.
The crowd roared with approval. Then and there, to that group, I was untouchable.
Time to Fight
The company moved to a marshalling area
Pat’s journals concur. He described how he and a friend from work talked constantly about “getting into the fighting part of the war.” They went to an Army recruiter’s office during their lunch break at the phone company where they saw a brochure for the Airborne that read, “Jump to the Fight.”
They were convinced the paratroopers were the only way to go.
The Toughest Man at Toccoa
After enlisting, Pat was sent to Toccoa, Georgia, where he wrote that, at first, “the majority of men had little conception of Army life and what was expected of them.” Mostly, “too many men in our ranks were unsuited for the Parachute Infantry,” which prompted heavy washouts. Over time, cohesiveness formed in the unit as the men hardened into soldiers.
“Pat became a paratrooper because he wanted to be the best,” Chris said. “He didn’t just want to be the average ground-pounding grunt, not to take away from that, but he wanted to be in a special unit.” Pat held the physical fitness record at Toccoa. That’s stiff competition—to be the toughest man at Toccoa. The family has a letter from Dick Winters verifying this. In Band of Brothers , the series shows Pat being the goat of training, drinking water on a run when he wasn’t supposed to and having to run up and down Mount Currahee again. “We’ve asked the men who were there if that ever happened,” Gary noted. “They said, ‘Not to Christenson.’”
His young nephew kept a close watch on Pat’s experiences from basic training onward. When Pat was in jump school, he taped his nephew’s picture inside his helmet while making his five qualifying jumps, then commandeered an extra set of jump wings, which he sent home to Gary. “He told me I was a qualified jumper,” Gary said. “With those wings I was the envy of my school. In those days, everybody was well into the war effort. The armed forces were honored by teachers and students alike.”
In spite of the rigorous training, Pat kept a rueful sense of humor. After the unit was sent to Alderbourne, England, for further training, he wrote, “Our training revolved around how to fight every conceivable way, and often, large groups of men gathered at the local pub.” He described the food they ate in England—Brussels sprouts, turnips, and “I think they slipped some horse meat to us from time to time.”
Headquarters staff expected an enemy invasion on England’s airfields, so Lieutenant Winters picked three E Company men to teach unarmed combat to nearby defense units. Pat and the others selected were only privates, so Winters told them to borrow shirts from fellow sergeants in case they were challenged by the trainees. The three E Company men traveled to a nearby air base and taught the defense unit hand-to-hand combat techniques for several days. It was a rough-and-tumble crew, but Pat didn’t back down. He wrote:
After a period of time, a group came to me and exclaimed, ‘Sergeant, no one can get out of this guy’s hold. If this stuff works show us how you’d get away from him.’ There, standing in the middle of the group, was a great big 300-pounder with a smile from ear to ear.
I deliberately paused, directed a cold stare at him, then approached quickly and said, ‘Make your move.’
As soon as I felt his arms around me I immediately collapsed my legs and threw my arms over my head. I slipped out of his grasp and found the back of his neck with my hands. His body was now bent over my back. I jerked hard on the back of his neck. His body, off balance, came flying over my shoulder and struck the ground with a violent thud. Swiftly, I drove my knee into his neck. I had never executed that move as well before or since.
The crowd roared with approval. Then and there, to that group, I was untouchable.
Time to Fight
The company moved to a marshalling area
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