美国国家公共电台 NPR 82nd Airborne Division Celebrates 100 Years

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The 82nd Airborne Division is turning 100 years old this week. Its soldiers gained fame in major battles of the World Wars, and they've become the nation's go-to troops for rapid deployment². Jay Price of member station WUNC traveled to Fort Bragg to look at the long story of one of the world's most famous military units.

JAY PRICE, BYLINE³: Sometimes after Specialist Kevin Bogucki jumps out of a C-17 transport jet, he hits other stuff before he hits the ground.

KEVIN BOGUCKI: It's maybe 20 seconds in the air. And that whole time you're trying to make sure your chute is open, you're not running into guys. You know, you're not bouncing off other dude's chutes.

PRICE: You ever bounced off a chute?

BOGUCKI: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You go spread-eagled and try bounce off. I've bounced off of chutes, had my chute bounced off. Never gotten tangled⁴ with a guy.

PRICE: One of his friends broke a hip⁵ after another soldier came through his parachute. Like all paratroopers, Bogucki volunteered for this. The 82nd is the nation's largest unit of paratroopers. It was formed in World War I. But its identity, its culture is built around one thing - parachuting into combat. And that began in World War II.

KENNETH MERRITT: They told us nobody was better than the paratroopers. He could whoop⁶ five men. Any paratrooper could. That was what they told all of us.

PRICE: Kenneth Rock Merritt was 20 years old when he was the second man out of a C-47 transport over Normandy, hours before the first landing craft hit the beaches.

MERRITT: On D-Day, my entire chain of command got killed. Not wounded, not captured, all of them got killed.

PRICE: Merritt says nearly 2,100 in his regiment⁷ made that jump. After a month of fighting, fewer than a thousand were left. Later, he parachuted into Holland. The combat jumps were harrowing.

MERRITT: If somebody tells you, no, you're not scared, he's either lying or he's a fool.

PRICE: But he jumped and fought and became part of the 82nd's history.

JOHN AARSEN: An 18-year-old in 1943 jumped out of a door over Sicily and did what he needed to.

PRICE: John Aarsen is a historian and director of the 82nd's museum. Every new paratrooper is brought here.

AARSEN: And you are an 18-year-old in the United States and what I'm asking you to do is no different than what happened on that dark night in Italy. And you can do it.

PRICE: The full sweep of the unit's history is almost too much to absorb - World War I hero Sgt. Alvin York, the Normandy invasion, and after the war, the first Army division to be permanently⁸ integrated. It kept order at the desegregation of the University of Mississippi and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But the big parachute assaults it became famous for often had heavy casualties and mixed results and prompted a question that goes right to the heart of the unit's identity - a question people are still asking.

AARSEN: So for 74 years of 75 years of airborne history, everyone's been saying, do we need this capability⁹ in the army?

PRICE: The 82nd fought in Vietnam and has been almost constantly deployed¹⁰ in Iraq and Afghanistan but without big combat jumps. The last one was in 1989 in Panama. The 82nd's ability to deploy¹ rapidly with or without parachutes has kept it a go-to unit.

AARSEN: The 82nd is the only unit in the army they can load on an airplane 18 hours after you call it up and be moving to wherever you need to because it's rehearsed.

PRICE: And 82nd is trying to keep big jumps relevant. It's experimenting with a light-armored vehicle that can be dropped by parachute. The idea is soldiers and vehicles could be dropped a short distance from an objective like an airport. They would be out of range of its anti-aircraft defenses but close enough to attack quickly with that can-do paratrooper attitude Merritt had in Normandy.

MERRITT: And of course, as you know, we got no replacement¹¹. Everybody had to move up. But we were trained to move up two jobs, two slots.

PRICE: Merritt, now 94 years old, retired¹² after 35 years with various army units. None, he said, matched the 82nd for morale¹³ or spirit. Minutes before he jumped for the start of an overnight combat exercise, Bogucki agreed.

BOGUCKI: Absolutely. You can't - you don't go on training things like this all the time without - it has to pay some dividends¹⁴.

PRICE: Then he and dozens of other paratroopers stood, all burdened with heavy packs, rifles and parachutes.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Unintelligible).

PRICE: They filed back to the two open doors. And without pausing, Bogucki jumped.

GREENE: That was Jay Price reporting from Fort Bragg, N.C.

1 deploy   

v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开

参考例句：

• The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
• The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。

2 deployment   

n. 部署,展开

参考例句：

• He has inquired out the deployment of the enemy troops. 他已查出敌军的兵力部署情况。
• Quality function deployment (QFD) is a widely used customer-driven quality, design and manufacturing management tool. 质量功能展开(quality function deployment,QFD)是一个广泛应用的顾客需求驱动的设计、制造和质量管理工具。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

5 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

6 whoop   

n.大叫，呐喊，喘息声；v.叫喊，喘息

参考例句：

• He gave a whoop of joy when he saw his new bicycle.他看到自己的新自行车时，高兴得叫了起来。
• Everybody is planning to whoop it up this weekend.大家都打算在这个周末好好欢闹一番。

7 regiment   

n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制

参考例句：

• As he hated army life,he decide to desert his regiment.因为他嫌恶军队生活，所以他决心背弃自己所在的那个团。
• They reformed a division into a regiment.他们将一个师整编成为一个团。

8 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

9 capability   

n.能力；才能；(pl)可发展的能力或特性等

参考例句：

• She has the capability to become a very fine actress.她有潜力成为杰出演员。
• Organizing a whole department is beyond his capability.组织整个部门是他能力以外的事。

10 deployed   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Tanks have been deployed all along the front line. 沿整个前线已部署了坦克。
• The artillery was deployed to bear on the fort. 火炮是对着那个碉堡部署的。

11 replacement   

n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品

参考例句：

• We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
• They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。

12 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

13 morale   

n.道德准则，士气，斗志

参考例句：

• The morale of the enemy troops is sinking lower every day.敌军的士气日益低落。
• He tried to bolster up their morale.他尽力鼓舞他们的士气。

14 dividends   

红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金

参考例句：

• Nothing pays richer dividends than magnanimity. 没有什么比宽宏大量更能得到厚报。
• Their decision five years ago to computerise the company is now paying dividends. 五年前他们作出的使公司电脑化的决定现在正产生出效益。