Necessary
George Luz/Carwood Lipton, PG

There were different kinds of heroics, different kinds of courage. Sometimes men would take a grenade for their comrades, sacrifice their body, their life for the sake of their friends. Sometimes men would risk life and limb to make sure a friend wasn’t left behind. His, however, his was a quiet bravery, quiet heroism. It was not newsworthy or loud; it was subtle, the kind most appreciated by the men and underappreciated by the rest of the world.

At Toccoa, he led his platoon, looking up to Lieutenant Winters, following Lieutenant Winters. Luz admired him then, admired his steadfastness and levelheaded nature. He admired him like he admired most of his comrades, comrades that would later turn into brothers. Because really, that’s the only word for them. To call them friends is too weak, implies that the relationship could be broken, terminated, lost. But this is not the case among these men; what they have with each other will not and cannot be lost. Those sweaty days at Toccoa, they started the bond, eating, sleeping, running, learning with each other. And in England, they continued, uniting in order to survive Captain Sobel. And that day of days, when they climbed aboard those planes to drop to whatever lay ahead in the war, that bond grew significantly stronger, and solidified in the months that followed. Months turned into years; time stretched on and on, full of sweat and blood and tears and exhaustion and rain and snow, frostbit and broken limbs, shrapnel ridden bodies and bullet holes.

Luz admired him from the beginning. Knew he could always rely on him. He was dependable and reasonable. He was a good soldier, a good leader. He stayed calm and levelheaded for his men, for his officers. Quiet and subtle, he led them from the beginning.

But Luz, Luz wasn’t quiet. He wasn’t subtle. At Toccoa, he grinned and laughed and told jokes. He worked to make people smile, make them forget, even if just for a second, that they were training to jump out of planes and training to go to war. Poked fun at others so that maybe, just for a minute, they’d forget that tomorrow they’d be jumping behind enemy lines. Did impressions of inadequate leaders so that maybe, just for a moment, they’d forget the frigid air around them and the Germans that surrounded them.

Luz admired him from the beginning, but didn’t quite see the things that would make him stand out later in the war. He admire his skills, admired him like he admired Joe Toye and Skip Muck and Don Malarkey. He admired Lip the way he admired his other brothers, trusted his other brothers. It would take time for him to need Lip, need that quiet support, need his presence, because Lip’s presence wasn’t loud like Bill’s and Skip’s. It was understated, but no less necessary.

It was in the woods of Belgium when Luz fully realized that Lip and everything he was was absolutely necessary. When Lieutenant Dike disappeared, walked away, abandoned them, it was First Sergeant Carwood Lipton who led them, reassured them, lifted them. Even when Dike was there, at least physically, it was Lip who led them, it was Lip who they looked to for guidance. And when they reach that point, that cliff where they just wanted to let themselves fall and shatter onto the hard, frozen ground, it was Lip who took it upon himself to try and pull them back. When Luz saw Joe and Bill bleeding on the ground, he froze and watched their blood spread onto the white snow, staining it red. He stared at the mass of flesh and veins and bone that used to be Bill’s leg, and he froze. He froze, and for once George Luz had nothing to say. He froze until Lip yelled his name, and George Luz looked up into eyes that were demanding his focus.

“LUZ. How’s Buck?”

“He’s fine.”

“You sure?”

George finally snapped out of it, stopped hovering over that line, ready to break at any moment. “Yes, he’s fine. You should probably go talk to him, though, huh”

It was in the woods of Belgium that George Luz realized he absolutely needed Lip. Carwood Lipton with his simple, unobtrusive bravery. The heroism that was quiet and faint and unremarkable to an outsider, but so tangible to his own men. In the woods of Belgium, Luz realized he absolutely needed Lip when he grabbed Luz and hauled him into that foxhole. Muck and Penkala had been destroyed right in front of him, could’ve easily been him along with them. The noise of the shells was muted for a moment, and again he hovered over that line, before rising to run to the nearest foxhole. He fell and seemed to trip over that line, stay for a moment. The shelling wasn’t stopping, and he had watched two of his brothers killed right in front of him. Crawling along the ground, it was Lip who saved him, in so many ways, pulled him out of the world that was collapsing around him, pulled him away from that breaking point and held onto him. Pulled him in, and Luz knew that things would turn out okay because Lip’s got him.

That mortar hit the ground next to them and smoked. Lip was still huddled into him, and they both looked at it with disbelief. Luz wanted to tell him to keep hanging onto him, because as long as he was, the world seemed like it would be okay.

That mortar hit the ground next to them, and Lip stole his cigarette.

“I thought you didn’t smoke.”

“I don’t.”

It was strangely comforting, like Lip was finally creating some tangible link between them, like Lip was finally taking something from Luz and making it his, too. George Luz had trained with Lip, fought alongside him, but this was somehow theirs, and theirs alone. George Luz had a special bond with the men of Easy Company; they were not just his friends or fellow soldiers, they were brothers. They laughed together, smoked together, fought together, died together, because really when one of them died physically, a small part of everyone else died, too. But they sat in that foxhole smoking, and Luz knew that this was not the same. George Luz smoked with the other men, huddled around fires, sometimes huddle around cold, snowy ground, but it was not the same, and he would not relish those times the way he relished sharing a smoke with Carwood Lipton.

They finally left Belgium, left the hell that had frozen over. Luz had survived, mostly. Some of his brothers were gone, off the line or dead and cold. Bill and Joe, Skip, Penkala, Buck. Everyone else, they seemed to leave a part of themselves in the snowy wasteland of the Ardennes Forest, a part of them would always feel the things they witnessed there.

They finally left Belgium, and Luz was afraid that Lip would leave him behind, in that foxhole where they shared a smoke. They rode away on trucks, and Luz looked back at the snow-covered land and destroyed town, and wondered if Lip had left him behind in the cold. But as usual, Lip came through. He nudged George on the shoulder, and he snapped out of his thoughts and Lip nodded his head toward George’s cigarettes. He lit it for him and leaned his head back, enjoying the comfortable weight of Lip’s shoulder against his.