I first met Frank J. Cole in 1978 when I was about eighteen. He was working as a security guard at the Ramada Inn in the tourist town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I had recently graduated from Hillsboro High School in Nashville and had immediately moved to Gatlinburg with my parents. My father had accepted the position as rector, or parish priest, at Trinity Episcopal Church. In the fall I would begin classes forty miles away at Maryville College, but first would come my introduction to Appalachian culture, which was a considerable change from my city-bred upbringing. I was an outsider, and therefore not easily accepted as a “local,” but Frank and I quickly became friends. Although he was as pure a “mountain” man as one was likely to find in 1978, he also had a certain detachment from his native surroundings, a detachment I would very slowly begin to recognize and even more slowly begin to understand.

At the Ramada, Frank was charged mostly with keeping the parking lot free of vagrant tourists and outlaw parkers. Although he was working as a private security guard and did not serve the county in any official capacity, he wore the full uniform and badge of a deputy sheriff, an appearance greatly enhanced by the oversized revolver that hung from his gun belt. He did look the part. One of my first memories of Frank is of him proudly showing a photo of himself posing with some rather well-built ladies, ladies dressed to impress. The photo had been taken a few weeks earlier, he said, at a reunion for the 101st Airborne. I would soon learn that both ladies and the 101st Airborne were inextricably linked to Frank’s identity.

During the first summer of our friendship, Frank was a self-professed “dry” alcoholic; he did not use the term “recovering.” This would be my first, but far from my last, honest face-to-face look at alcoholism. I was an everyday beer drinker before my eighteenth birthday and my dad was less than a decade away from dying of bourbon-induced cirrhosis, but neither of us had yet admitted any definite problem with the stuff (other than problems with the strict liquor laws then in effect for most of Tennessee, which made it less than convenient to keep well-stocked.) Frank did. He was clearly resigned to the fact that, for him, “one drink is too many and one hundred aren’t enough.” He also forewarned me stay away if I ever saw him on the hooch. He remained sober that first summer, but a couple of years later I saw the other side. I was walking down a side street when I found Frank sitting on the curb, his hair mussed up and cuts and scratches all over his face, glasses nowhere to be found. “I got drunk and got in a fight,” he sheepishly slurred through a bloody, toothless grin. I helped him up and took him to his parents’ house, which was just a block away.

I naively started lecturing him on how he had told me himself that he can’t drink, but he quickly let me know that there wasn’t anything I could tell him on the subject that he didn’t already know a hundred times better. He also asked me if I would I be willing to drive him to the Veterans Administration hospital in Johnson City—when he was ready. I said I would, and then I took his earlier advice and stayed clear of him for a few weeks. One night the call came, and the next morning I got behind the wheel of his elderly mother’s car, the seat pushed up so close to the dashboard that my knees barely fit. Mrs. Cole got in the passenger seat and Frank sat in the back. The ride to the V.A. had the sort of shenanigans to be expected when carting around a drunk, but nothing gravely memorable. After getting Frank checked-in, I drove the two-hour return trip in the company of his mother. She was an impressively silent woman with a slight but very sincere smile and deep, knowing eyes. I was intimidated but not uncomfortable in her presence. Even if I knew very little about her life, I knew she was someone special.

Perhaps feeling the need to explain her son’s behavior, Mrs. Cole said, “He’s never been the same since he came back from the war.” She said this matter-of-factly, with neither bitterness nor remorse, although perhaps with a touch of melancholy. Then she added, “his daddy was the same way,” meaning her husband had never been the same since returning from war in 1918. “Every night Frank will go to sleep in his bed, and every night I come in and cover him on the floor with a blanket. He just never has been able to sleep normal since he got home.” Frank had been married and divorced a couple of times, and in between marriages he sometimes moved back into his parent’s home in Gatlinburg. But I knew she meant when he returned home in 1945. During the silence that followed I thought about the tremendous suffering this woman must have endured. And then I remembered Allen, the son who didn’t come back. As an older man I might have ventured a question, asked about her thoughts on her sons going to war, but at the time I couldn’t begin to grasp the measure of that sacrifice. I still can’t.

Frank Cole certainly was neither aware nor concerned about the political shape of the world in 1941. While possessing a sharp mind and quick wit, he was, like many of his fellow highlanders, semi-literate at best, so he had little use for newspapers, and radios were not yet common in the mountains. But of course news does travel, and as he phrased it, "We heard there was some shootin' goin' on," so he enlisted in the 101st Airborne without questioning or being overly concerned with the details of the conflict. Just as his father had done some twenty-five years before, Frank answered “the call,” and he brought considerable skills with him. During basic training he found the shooting range to be almost laughable. How could you not hit a target that was straight in front of you, motionless, with absolutely nothing between you and it to hinder the shot? He easily plugged the bull’s-eye with his first couple of shots, and waited for the congratulations. The sergeant overseeing the action, after inspecting the target, calmly said, "Good shooting son. You keep it up and they'll stick you in a tree somewhere and leave you there until the Germans shoot you down." Frank got the message and started veering his shots off slightly to the left or right of the center, thus earning the marksmanship ribbon without being upgraded to sniper status.

There were plenty of stories about his days in the 101st, and many of the references he made were vividly recalled in the epic movie based on Stephen Ambrose Band of Brothers, although Frank was not in Easy Company. The English scenes, the jump on June 6, the hedgerows, the civilians of France, Belgium, and Germany—Frank could certainly recite the itinerary like a man who had been there, and he usually made it sound almost fun. But sometimes that veneer cracked a little. For instance, Frank didn’t just refer to himself as a veteran of the 101st; he delighted in calling himself one of “the Battling Bastards of Bastogne.” That phrase was one of the rare moments when he hinted at the reality he had faced in 1944. Usually he made entertaining references to French prostitutes or some humorous circumstance that happened among the British—always “limeys” in Frank’s stories—prior to the invasion of Normandy, but on occasions he did make curt comments that reflect more of the truth.

One winter day I found Frank drinking coffee in a little bar situated on the rooftop of a small hotel. The bar had picture windows facing every direction and the view was magnificent. I was taking in the beauty of the mountain vista covered in white, and I made some comment about the overwhelming beauty. Frank only grumbled in response. I was somewhat taken aback as I had expected a true mountain man—and Frank was most certainly a child of the mountains—to revel in the natural beauty of the moment. When I remarked as such, he growled, “Phil, I’ve had no use for snow since Bastogne.”

Bastogne was a reference to his participation in the Battle of the Bulge. The 101st Airborne was surrounded by German forces and very nearly overrun—but they famously held on. Frank claimed he saw George Patton himself leading the 3rd Army as it broke through the siege at Bastogne. My dad said he might have been speaking figuratively—no way was Patton in a lead tank—but by the time I heard it, I’m pretty sure Frank believed it as fact. And I’m certain he wouldn’t stand for any intellectual yammering about the controversial legacy of Patton, especially by people who had only read a book about it or watched a movie, because he let me know his thoughts one day when I made a remark suggesting that Patton was perhaps not as great as his press releases claimed.

He was a natural and gifted storyteller, Frank Cole. I loved to listen to his yarns, even when I knew he was sometimes embellishing for my benefit. A favorite story took place in the Sugarlands, the little mountain area where he and his brothers grew up until the federal government made that slice of mountain paradise a part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. After the forced sale of lands to be used for the park, the residents were often allowed to continue living on the land for a specified period of time, but with new rules. Hunting and fishing were now strictly regulated by the federal government. Mountaineers such as Frank and his brothers depended heavily on the local game, both for food and entertainment, and they didn't easily adhere to the imposition of federal laws forbidding them to behave in the only manner they understood. The result was that Frank and Allen Cole quickly became known targets for the federal agents now trying to keep an eye on the new park land.

Their father, Allen Walter “Walt” Cole was told that infractions, in addition to hefty fines which he could ill afford, would lead to his family being forced off the land sooner than proposed. Known locally as an honest man of great integrity, Mr. Cole was a compassionate but stern father whose motto was "I only swing my axe once." The boys may have made great sport out of eluding the feds, but they knew better than to toy with their dad.

One afternoon Frank was at the family home in the Sugarlands with his younger brother Sherril. Frank was about fourteen, Sherril about eight. Sherril came into the house shouting excitedly, "Frank, there's a bear eating Dad's honey." Frank rushed outdoors to see a big black bear sitting on his haunches, honey dripping down his face and bees flying all around (At this point in the story, Frank would mimic the bear’s face and its swatting at the bees, with great effect). He had already destroyed a couple of hives and was making short work of another one. The hives being a major source of income for the Coles, Frank knew he had to stop the bear, but he also knew it was big trouble to kill a bear on the newly-designated federal property. Pondering the dilemma as he watched the bear dig out more honey, Frank made a decision: "Sherril, go get me Dad's rifle." Carefully preparing the long, single shot breech-loading rifle, Frank positioned himself behind a small tree that allowed him to rest the long barrel of the rifle in the "v" between two branches. He took careful aim, and when the bear turned his head, Frank squeezed the trigger. The bullet passed through the bear's head at the temple, exactly where Frank had aimed. The great animal let out a brief roar and then fell over backwards, still covered in bees and honey. Frank quickly reloaded the rifle, and said, "Sherril, take a stick and poke that bear. If he moves I'll shoot him again." Being the youngest brother can be hazardous in the mountains. Sherril did as he was told, but a second shot was unnecessary. Now the worrying began. Had federal agents heard the shot? And, more importantly, what would Dad say?

Just as the sun was setting, Mr. and Mrs. Cole, middle brother Allen, and daughter Hazel returned from their trip to town. Frank, knowing the bear carcass would be easy to spot, swallowed hard and forced himself to tell his dad the story. Mr. Cole, a quiet and calm man by nature, didn't visibly react to the news. He just stared at Frank for what seemed to the youngster to be an eternity, and then said, "Go up to the Carr's place and tell Jim to bring his knife." That was all that was said. The neighbor came down and the two men spent the night skinning the bear and dividing up the meat. Years later Frank's son Gary would recall that his grandfather's only response to the re-telling of the tale was to say, "Frank could've chased that bear away. He wanted to shoot it." Seems reasonable when you think about it, but as far as I can remember, Frank never mentioned the possibility of chasing the bear away. No reason to taint a good story.

I never told Frank what his mother had said about his sleeping habits during our drive home from the VA, and I never heard Frank blame any of his problems on his service or the war. In fact, whenever he mentioned his time in the 101st, it was obvious that the experience was the defining moment of his life and would have remained so no matter what had transpired in the decades he lived following the war. Frank seemed to know—although he never stated—that he himself had in a sense been spent up in the war, but he clearly accepted it as an honor, never something to grumble or complain about. At the time of our friendship, I did not spend too much time reflecting on what men such as Frank had gone through. I was a young man with young man concerns in front of me, and like most folks I had trouble seeing beyond those concerns. But I sensed that there was something special about this grizzled mountaineer, this proud Battling Bastard of Bastogne. And I came to suspect that Allen was somehow connected to that special quality. Of his brother Allen, I can still hear Frank say, as his eyes focus on something in the distance, “Allen died on D-day, on the beach . . . .” At first I assumed he meant Normandy, but I would later discover more about the service of Allen Cole.

At the end of every summer I always made sure to say goodbye to Frank before returning to college. Every year he'd say the same thing as I was walking away: "Don't let all those books get in the way of your education." It was good advice.
 

© Phil Rice 2009