Self-confident The Description of Richard Winters’ Characteristic
32 with his men. One moment, there is a person who is wounded in Holland, but he
rejoins up his men in Belgium. Winters thinks that he does not need to rejoin if he is still wounded.
As Peacock left, Father John Maloney brought Joe Toye back from the aid station in Bastogne in his jeep. He dropped Toye off by the road. Toye
started walking across the field toward the front line. Winters saw him, his arm in a sling, heading back toward the front.
“Where are you going?”Winters asked. “You don’t have to go back to the line.
“I want to go back with the fellows,” Toye replied, and kept walking p. 200.
The text above shows that Winters is giving attention to his men. Joe Toye come with his arm in a sling and has conversation with Winters. He tells Joe, that
he does not need to go back to the line, but Joe just acts as if there is nothing happened because his arm is recovered. It is analyzed based on Murphy’s 1972
theory of characterization. It is derived from the conversation of others p. 167. The war is almost over and Winters is asked by his ranking officer to take a
patrol. He asked the men had a patrol. The patrol succeed to take the prisoner, but one man is killed. The next day, his officer asks Winters to take another patrol. He
thinks that another patrol does not mean anything with one men killed, it is the same as suicidal.
Colonel Sink was so delighted with the successful patrol, he ordered another one for the next night. In the meantime, however, it had snowed,
then turned colder. The snow was frozen on top, crunchy, noisy. The cold air had cleared out the sky and the moon was shining. Winters thought a
patrol under such circumstances was suicidal, so he decided to disobey orders.
Sink and a couple of staff officers came to 2d Battalion CP to observe. They had a bottle of whiskey with them. Winters said he was going down
to the river bank to supervise the patrol. When he got to the outpost, he told the men to just stay still. With the whiskey working on him, sink would
33 soon be ready for bed. The patrol could report in the morning that it had
gotten across the river and into German lines but had been unable to get a live prisoner p. 234.
The text above shows Winters cares about his men. Looking the situation at the current time, the war is almost over and both, Germany and ally do not do a
frontal attack. It does not worth to take patrol that can probably kill his men. It is analyzed based on Murphy’s 1972 theory of characterization. It is derived from
the thought p. 171.