The Big Red One

1

- Permission to enter?

- Come.

Where's the rest of

the company, captain?

Where do you think?

Moved out with the battalion.

I've been waiting here for you.

- You took your time getting back.

- I got lost in the smoke.

What happened to your gun?

Have you ever seen a

shell-shocked horse?

He stomped all over me and got my

rifle, knocked it to smithereens.

Well, I suppose horses have as much right

to go crazy in this war as men have.

Oh.

What do you think?

What the hell is it?

It's a "one." First

Infantry Division.

The Red One. You think General

Pershing will like it?

- Oh, sure.

- Got the idea from a cap of a Hun I killed.

- When?

- Oh, about an hour ago.

Did he yell out anything?

Well, the same old kaiser stuff, you

know, "The war is over," all that junk.

- Finish it.

- Sir?

Finish it.

The armistice was signed

at 11:
00 this morning.

The war's been over for four hours.

Well, you didn't know it was over.

He did.

A quarter of a century later,

that piece of red cloth...

from the dead Hun's hat had

become famous all over the world.

It was the insignia of the

1st Infantry Division.

The Fighting First,

the Big Red One.

Twenty-four years later, the Big Red

One was fighting the Krauts again.

It was World War II this time.

We were invading North Africa.

Hey, Griff.

Great! Thanks, sergeant.

We were his rifle squad.

First Squad, 1st Platoon,

I Company, 16th Infantry.

He called us his wet-noses.

Griff, he was a hell

of a sharpshooter.

Johnson was a pig farmer

with hemorrhoids.

Vinci was a street kid who played hot jazz

on the saxophone, and that's me, Zab.

I thought I was the

Hemingway of the Bronx.

You really a book writer?

- Yeah.

- What book did you write?

The Dark Deadline.

- Never heard of it.

- Never read it.

It's an unpublished mystery novel.

I left it with my mother.

Why's a book writer a rifleman?

To come out with a war novel,

meathead. Why else, huh?

What about you, Griff?

You gonna be a cartoonist...

- ...for a big newspaper or something?

- Mm-hm.

Say, Griff. You do

everything left-handed?

Everything but shoot.

And play with my pecker.

"Watch out, Vichy.

Here comes the Big Red One."

Vichy?

I always thought Vichy was

some kind of soda pop.

No. Vichy's the French,

fighting on Hitler's side.

Yeah, that's why we're wearing these

so they don't shoot Americans, huh?

We dropped leaflets so

they know we're coming.

But if they start a fight,

we'll have to kill them.

We were in this war to fight

Germans, not Frenchmen.

We were kind of hoping they

were feeling the same way.

Put your rubbers on and

keep the salt water out.

Thanks, Griff.

I'll bet the guy that

invented these...

- ...never figured they'd be used on a rifle.

- I never could screw with them.

- How about you, Johnson?

- Not me.

Over on the Algerian beach, French

soldiers were reading our leaflets...

and also wondering if

they were gonna fight.

The colonel is stupid not

to believe these leaflets.

We are no good. You,

me, all of us here.

Defending this miserable Algerian beach

for Marshal Ptain and Adolf Hitler.

I can't kill an American.

There were four things you

could hear on the boat:

The waves, the engines...

an occasional muffled prayer...

and the sound of 50 guys all

heaving their guts out.

French troops, don't shoot.

We are Americans.

Don't shoot. We come to fight Hitler,

not to fight with you. Don't shoot.

Hold your fire!

- Yes, colonel.

- Open fire.

Not on Americans.

Medic! Medic!

Nail him, Griff!

How the hell could you miss him?

Hell, he was close enough

to kiss on both cheeks.

What the hell's the matter with you?

I never saw you miss.

Medic! Over here.

Sixteenth Infantry, hold your fire!

Americans, this is Captain Chapter.

General Tavernier is dead.

Americans! I surrender

my troops to your hands.

Frenchmen, we do not

accept your surrender.

You surrender only to the enemy.

If you're Vichy, fight us.

If you're Frenchmen, join us!

We were feeling cocky as hell.

Except Griff.

In the middle of the

battle, he froze.

It got to Griff.

He kept away from the rest of us.

Nobody wanted to use the

word "coward," not yet.

How come we're not pushing inland?

Red Company's carrying the ball.

Take your malaria pills.

I wonder what they gave you in the

other war not to get a hard-on?

The same stuff you're wolfing

down now. It has saltpeter.

Griff's back.

I can't murder anybody.

We don't murder, we kill.

It's the same thing.

The hell it is, Griff.

You don't murder

animals, you kill them.

The truth is, none of us had the

faintest idea what war was all about.

We hadn't met the Krauts yet.

Communications Center

caught an American bomb.

These wet-noses found the phonograph

and one record undamaged.

Look at the faces of these

puppies, Schroeder.

They think the Horst

Wessel song is so...

Horst Wessel was a pimp who supplied

Hitler with baby faces like you.

He was killed in a brawl,

over a whore in Berlin.

A poem by a pimp became the

hymn of Hitler's party.

Is that right, Schroeder?

Don't want to disillusion

these infants, huh?

You're getting soft.

Schroeder used to be tough. In Libya,

I saw him murder a German officer.

I didn't murder him,

Gerd, I killed him...

when he ran from a fight

with the British.

Murder. Killed.

It's the same thing.

We don't murder the enemy, we kill.

Everything is on the move.

Battalion is sending us

to the Kasserine Pass.

- We're going to choke on panzer fumes.

- Not me, Schroeder.

Let Rommel's panzer grenadiers

march behind those tanks.

But not me. I want no more.

I'm no damn Nazi fanatic like you.

Germany is through

singing for Adolf Hitler.

Our brilliant generals

had figured...

that Rommel's push would come

at a place called Speava...

so they massed most of the

Allied forces over there.

But they sent our regiment

around the back way...

through a sh*t-hole called

the Kasserine Pass.

Our squad was on point.

We got an eyeful, all right.

The whole damned Afrika Korps was

coming through the Kasserine Pass.

Rommel had caught us

with our pants down.

We got tanks, boys, and

infantry with them.

They'll be looking behind the rocks

for antitank guns, so let's go!

- Oh, sh*t.

- Let's go.

Sergeant, where are we gonna run to?

They'll spot us out in the open.

We're not running,

we're digging in.

Digging in?

Are you crazy, sergeant?

All right. Dig in and let

them roll over our heads.

Hey, they're going

off to the right!

Guess again, jerk-off.

Look over there.

Jeez.

Tanks! They're all over the place!

The war is over for you.

We won.

You lost.

You are in a temporary German

hospital in Tunis, sergeant.

Our doctors are very impressed

with your recovery.

You should be dead.

We'd better get out of here.

You heard what that orderly said.

This is an unmarked hospital,

and they'd just as soon blast us.

Anybody here from the Big Red One?

Sixteenth.

Eighteenth!

Where's that Big Red One man?

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