The three of us, Jake, Joe, and I, became... an entity. There were many entities in our close-knit organizations. Groups of threes and fours, usually from the same squads or sections, core elements within the families that wee the small units, were readily recognized as entities.... This sharing... evolved never to be relinquished, never to be repeated. Often three such entities would make up a squad, with incredible results in combat. They would literally insist on going hungry for one an other, freezing for one another, dying for one another. And the squad would try to protect them or bail them out without the slightest regard to consequences, cussing them all the way for making it necessary. Such a rifle squad, machine gun section, scout-observer section, pathfinder section was a mystical concoction.


Kurt Gabel. Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne - From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, p.21, 22