#can you tell i wrote an entire undergrad thesis on physical culture and the body beautiful

[pfctipper]

this post is only half-serious but i am constantly thinking about whatever weird body image issues dick winters had going on

i mean, the man is obsessed. look at how he talks about joining the paratroops:

'The more I looked at the paratroopers, the more I was inclined to join them as soon as I graduated from OCS. Of all the outfits I'd seen at Fort Benning, they were the best looking and most physically fit ... Airborne troopers looked like how I had always pictured a group of soldiers: hard, lean, bronzed, and tough' (Beyond Band of Brothers)

'It was at Benning that Winters first saw paratroopers up close. They were everything he'd always envisioned a soldier to be: lean, hard, well trained and disciplined, bronzed and tough. The men bore a fierce pride' (Biggest Brother)

and the main things he values in his friendship with tab:

'Later [Floyd Talbert and I] developed a personal friendship that transcended rank. Talbert was athletic and dedicated. You knew if your life were on the line, he would come through'

and he's always mentioning it in his letters to deetta - this isn't even all of them from Hang Tough:

'Is cheese fattening? What a question! What's cheese made out of? Well, is milk and butter fattening? Ok, then, stay away from the cheese, eat more proteins, like that steak, but no carbohydrates' (Letter during basic training)

'Now if you want to take off weight, you must do it every day and in addition, take it easy on the chow and liquid intake. After about two or three weeks, if you've been real conscientious, you'll see some results. This may sound like a lot of bunk to you but there are few days when I don't run between two - two and a half miles, do 80 pushups, 60 situps on a footlocker, a couple of splits, and some leg and trunk exercises after the day's work is over. As a result I keep in pretty good shape' (Letter literally written at the airfield a week before Market Garden)

'I don't believe out of 600 men [in Second Battalion] that over 10 have been married. And in about 6 cases, they drew a lemon, I'd say. Something that should come with a sack where they really wear a hat ... Starting to get in pretty good shape again, 174. Just ten pounds off my fighting weight and I could make that in three, four days. How's your fighting form? Don't answer that' (Letter from Austria)

all of which is an objectively insane way to speak to your maybe-girlfriend. did he think this was flirting? was deetta thrilled to get weight loss advice and comments about how random english women were ugly from a man in the middle of a warzone

he manages to include multiple shirtless photos of himself in his books but not a single physical description of nix. even the random man who picks him up hitchhiking and then tries to pick him up gets called 'good-looking'. irene, nix's english wife, gets 'anything but beautiful' and 'skinny' which. dick. what is wrong with you