(no subject)
A-Day + 8. Arrival Day plus eight. Perhaps it was no D-Day, but Lipton still found himself keeping track in his head.
Eight days ago, Lipton had sat exhausted and battered in a convent in Belgium, thankful for the roof between Easy Company and German artillery that had been distinctly lacking for the past month. He looked around, sitting on the beach near where he had arrived, and took in the blue sky and glittering ocean. Frozen foxholes and contant barrages of shells and gunfire had become the norm for him. He had tried to keep the men together and alive, talking, joking, laughing, even as the forest was shot to hell and their buddies were killed all around them. It was his responsibility, as First Sergeant, to look after them, and he had tried his best to get them all through in one piece.
He'd had only limited success.
Perhaps that was one of the most disorienting things about the island: he had no responsibilities, other than the ones that he took on for himself. He would never stop feeling responsible for boys of Easy, those men he felt closer too than his own brothers, each and every one of whom he would trust with his life. But they had managed without him, before he got there. They were doing well; Hell, Luz was getting married. They didn't need him.
LIpton was used to having responsibility put upon him. Ever since his father had died when he was ten, he'd been the man of the family, needing to help his mother to provide for his younger siblings during the Depression. He'd worked all through high school, at whatever would hire him, at factories, at shops, helping his mother run her boarding house. He' d had enough money to attend just over a year of university - but then the money ran out and any thoughts of a career for himself were pushed aside to help his mother run the boarding house. He'd married JoAnne, for reasons he'd spent a long time thinking about since, but she quickly became just another person to look after, her interests inevitably trumping his. Then 1942 rolled around, and off he went to join the paratroopers and serve his country. More responsibility for Lipton, but by this time he was used to looking after others ahead of himself.
He would have thought that being free from any duties and outside forces dictating his future and commitments would have been liberating. But Lipton just found himself feeling useless, not sure what to do with himself. He looked out over the ocean, pensive, and wondered.
((OOC: Open to anyone, any ts. Lipton's on the beach and willing to chat, so it's a good time to meet him, and him you!))