Lynn “Buck” Compton’s Painful “Breakdown” In Band Of Brothers
Public DomainLynn “Buck” Compton’s story arc in Band of Brothers showed the true mental toll that warfare can take.
In one of the most harrowing moments of Band of Brothers, Lynn D. “Buck” Compton sees two of his fellow soldiers lose their legs during intense shelling in Episode 7, “The Breaking Point.” Face to face with the horror of war, Compton, played by Neal McDonough, reaches his “breaking point.”
That, however, was not exactly how Compton remembered things.
Born on December 31, 1921 in Los Angeles, California, Compton joined Easy Company at the end of 1943. Many of his real-life moments with the unit are portrayed accurately in Band of Brothers: Compton really did lob a grenade at a German soldier, timing it to explode upon impact, and he really was shot in the buttocks during Operation Market Garden.
But his recollection of the Battle of the Bulge differs from that portrayed by Stephen Ambrose in his book and in the television miniseries.
In the show, Compton watches with horror as his fellow soldiers William Guarnere and Joe Toye are maimed during a shelling. As he moves toward Guarnere and Toye, Compton seems frozen with horror and has difficulty crying for help. In a subsequent scene, he’s shown in a hospital, devastated by what he had witnessed and his response to the incident.
HBOCompton, played by Neal McDonough, remembered his breakdown differently than the show portrayed. The real Compton also became famous after the war for leading the prosecution of Sirhan B. Sirhan (who killed Robert F. Kennedy).
“He had stood up to everything the Germans had thrown at him,” Ambrose wrote in Band of Brothers. “But the sight of his platoon being decimated, of his… friends torn into pieces, unnerved him.”
Compton, though, remembered the battle a little differently. In his memoir Call of Duty: My Life Before, During and After the Band of Brothers, he noted that most of his scenes were “fictionalized” and that he did not believe he had been “clinically shell-shocked.” That said, Compton acknowledged that the battle was one of “unprecedented gore” and that he “ran” from the front lines to get medical help for his fellow soldiers who needed it.
Nuances like these abound in Band of Brothers but, in all, the miniseries stays fairly true to the real-life stories of the men in Easy Company. Memories of events may differ, and some moments were dramatized for TV (or even subdued, the truth seemingly unbelievable), but there are few glaring inaccuracies. As Band of Brothers shows, war is terrible and complex — and often leads to deep, lasting friendships between soldiers.
After reading about the true stories behind “Band of Brothers,” discover the true story of the Niland brothers, who inspired the film “Saving Private Ryan.” Or, look through these stunning colorized photos of World War II.
