The Big Red One

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It's an unpublished mystery novel.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 Pétain 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.

MAN (OVER P.A.): 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 shit-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, shit. 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?

What happened at the pass?

You with the 16th?

You one of them goons?

I Company, 3rd Battalion.

What are you doing wrapped up in that Arab bed sheet?

- What happened at the pass? - We counterattacked after you jokers ran.

We took Kasserine, Gafsa, El Guettar, Tunis.

- We ran Rommel right out of Africa. - You mean the Big Red One took Tunis.

We sure as hell did.

This is Tunis.

You're right.

We took Tunis.

The old bastard just couldn't face being left behind.

He heard we were shipping out to invade Sicily.

Where's the 1st Squad?

Where's the 1st Squad?

Out of the original 12-man rifle squad...

the four of us were the only ones left.

This invasion wasn't gonna be like North Africa.

The beach would be heavily defended.

So now at least, we could all go to Sicily and get killed together.

I gave the supply officer a Luger for it.

By the way, what were you doing in that Arab bed sheet?

They were shanghaiing all the combats...

and noncoms and training replacements for those rebel devils.

Where'd you steal it, stupe?

My name's Shep, not "stupe." I got it from the St. George Hotel in Algiers.

I understand you're an Italian, Vinci.

How come they let a wop in this man's Army?

I don't think a wop's gonna fight a wop.

I think all you'll do is drink dago red and sing "O Sole Mio."

I like "O Sole Mio."