"Thomas "Ripcord"  Roberts was a member of the 501st Parachute Battalion and then the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment.  He  drops a sad fact not heretofore reported.  The mortally wounded Milliken begged his litter bearers to clean his fingernails.

 Strange as this may seem to us reading this account in the comfort and safety of our homes, what do we know?  We have not been mortally wounded.  Many of us feel as though we have stared death in the face, eyeball to eyeball, but we walked away to live another day.  We cannot begin to presume the thoughts that pass through the mind on those who are being gathered into the arms of the grim reaper, from whence no explanations can come.

Another sad fact about the death of this young, well-liked lieutenant is that penicillin would have almost certainly saved his life.  The grenade segment penetrated through the lining of the abdomen, the peritoneum.  The results was the dreaded, but usual, peritonitis which almost always resulted in death.  Penicillin cured peritonitis.  Unfortunately penicillin was still a few weeks away from the Southwest Pacific Theater.”