A Company of Heroes (40 page)

Robert was eventually allowed back into the unit, but does not go into detail why. Altogether, he was hospitalized for 31 days. There were continued problems with his health, and he was not sure what his permanent status would be. He figured he would likely get transferred to limited service or receive a medical discharge, as reflected in the following three letters.

All Robert’s health problems eventually get squared away and he was permanently reinstated in the company. Two letters were sent home, one from Robert, the other a form letter sent to Johnny from Captain Herbert Sobel. The men were at Camp Shanks in New York, set to board the troop ship
Samaria
and be sent overseas.

The letter from Sobel to Johnny Klinkert has been circulated on the Internet. It’s printed below, shown in its greater context. The letter was written in cursive on Company E letterhead.

There were no letters sent home during the months of training in Aldbourne.

Robert made the D-day jump on June 6, 1944, with Easy Company and survived but was wounded and sent to the hospital. He wrote a V-Mail home from England on June 14, 1944. (Note that he signed this letter “love Bob,” when he signed all other letters “So long.”)

Robert wrote next on September 7, 1944. He had been sent back to his unit from the hospital. He mentioned writing a girl named Phyllis who lived near his hometown.

Ten days after this letter was written, the men would jump during Operation Market-Garden. Bob would jump with his company and fight to liberate Holland.

That was the last letter home Robert ever wrote.

The next correspondence was dated October 9, 1944, sent to Johnny. It was a Western Union telegraph and read simply:

The news followed on War Department letterhead. It was dated October 11, 1944, also sent to Johnny.

A Western Union telegram was dated the same day, sent by Johnny to inform Robert’s mom. (Herman was Robert’s uncle, who lived on the same ranch as his mom.)

On December 27, 1944, Robert’s father received a letter from the secretary of war, Washington, DC:

Major General Maxwell Taylor wrote to Johnny on January 20, 1945, from the headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division:

On April 13, 1945, Captain John R. Himes, chaplain with the 506th PIR, wrote to Robert’s mother:

Four years later, on March 31, 1949, a final letter was sent from the War Department to Robert’s mother, notifying her that Robert’s remains were interred at the U.S. Military Cemetery in Margraten, Holland.

The years passed, and Gariann notes that nobody in the family today specifically remembers having a service for Robert back in the States, but she assumes they did. There’s a grave marker for him up at the Beaver Creek Cemetery in Twisp, although it lists the wrong year of Robert’s death—1943 instead of 1944.

Susie’s daughter, Cora Bingman, notes that her mother took the news hard for many years. Susie was a strong Christian woman and agonized with her feelings, mostly with the resentment she felt. Then, in the late 1980s, some forty-five years after her brother died, Cora went into her mother’s house one day to find her sobbing.

“Mom what’s wrong?” Cora said.

“Today is the day I finally have forgiveness in my heart,” Grandma Susie said. The burden of hatred was finally gone from her life.

Grandma Susie always wanted to go to Holland to see her brother’s grave, but was never able to. Then in 1995, Gariann and a girlfriend decided to backpack around Europe. Gariann asked her grandma if there was anything she wanted her to do while over there. Gariann still gets choked up when she thinks about it. Her grandmother said, “Tell him we love him and haven’t forgotten.” Then her grandma broke down and cried.