Beyond the “Breaking Point”:

Persevering While on

the Workplace Battlefield

Welch bases this talk on Easy Company Soldier (St. Martin’s Press), the 2008 book about one of World War II’s “Band of Brothers” that, within six months, had risen to No. 1 in the nation among amazon.com’s WWII/Western Front books. Easy Company is about Don Malarkey, an Astorian-born, University of Oregon-educated man who spent more days in combat than anyone in the renowned “Easy Company” made famous by historian Stephen Ambrose’s book, “Band of Brothers,” and the Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg HBO series of the same name.

At one point, cold and emotionally devastated during the Battle of the Bulge, Malarkey finds himself at what soldiers call “The Breaking Point.” He seriously considers shooting himself in the foot as a coward’s ticket home. But he doesn’t. Why? Because he realized that he was needed as a leader. In essence, the good of the whole trumped his desire to be personally comfortable, a lesson that works in every workplace.

“Beyond the Breaking Point” draws on examples from Easy Company Soldier and from contemporary, non-military sectors to inspire people to persevere, to make sacrifices, to consider that they’re part of something bigger than themselves. And does so not by instilling guilt in audience members but in instilling pride.

Particularly good audiences

Gatherings that might be heavy on the testosterone side. Organizations going through tough times. And organizations wanting to emphasize teamwork.

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Welch’s background

Video sample

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I DIDN’T CRY after learning Skip Muck was dead. That would come later. Much later. Not that it didn’t hurt. Hell, I’d never felt pain so deep. He was like my brother. No, closer than my brother. But by January 9, when he’d died in a shelling about 100 yards east of where I was, I was too mentally numb to really react. Too tired. I didn’t sleep a wink for two nights after Roe broke the news to me. And after seeing Toye and Guarnere carted off, and Compton leaving, it was like dumping ice on a guy who was already frozen stiff.

But the main reason I didn’t crumble at his death is I couldn’t. That wasn’t allowed. With Compton gone, I realized I had to step up and lead. After Guarnere went down, Winters had promoted me to permanent sergeant status. Now, Buck was gone. From day one, you’re taught that the good of the whole is more important that just you. That you can’t let your emotions get in the way of the task at hand. So like a doctor who deals with pain and death each day, you just bury it somewhere deep down inside, thinking it’ll go away on its own.

If I’d put that bullet through my leg or gone to pieces when Toye and Guarnere had been wounded, or when Skip had died, what would it have done to the rest of these guys? Hell, we were all at the breaking point. Hanging on to whatever shred of resolve we still had in us. And if a few of us didn’t stand up and lead as if we were going to somehow survive this cold and outlast this last-gasp push by the Krauts, what would happen to Easy Company? You might as well bury us all beneath one giant headstone, etched with the words: The S.O.B.s quit. Hardly a fitting legacy to those left behind, including my uncles.

A book excerpt:

Don Malarkey

on not giving up

The setting: The Battle of the Bulge, Bastogne, Belgium, January 1944. In the numbing cold and snow of ‘Jack’s Woods,’ the Americans are virtually surrounded, low on ammo and lower still on morale. Malarkey has seen two of his best friends have legs blown off and just learned that his closest pal, Skip Muck, is dead.