Lt. Jack E. Foley
Mr. Foley grew up in Brookline with two brothers, the sons of a stay-at-home mother and a PPG salesman. After graduating from high school in 1940, he spent the next three years at the University of Pittsburgh, working toward a degree in political science and economics. But by 1943, he and a group of Army ROTC buddies decided they could wait no longer to get into the war and enlisted.
By November of that year, he was a lieutenant in the Coast Artillery Corps, guarding part of Puget Sound in Washington. He was later transferred to Texas and decided to become a paratrooper.
"I didn't want to go (to Europe) as a green second lieutenant. I wanted to do something special," he told the Post-Gazette in 2001, when he was honored at the Penn Hills Municipal Building. "The paratroopers were daring, unique. They were tough. They wore boots. That was where I wanted to be."
He completed paratrooper training in 1944 and shipped off to Holland as a replacement to Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division
Mr. Foley, who was later wounded at Foy and at Haguenau near the German border, is featured briefly in the final four episodes of "Band of Brothers," played by British actor Jamie Bamber. His character is perhaps most visible in "The Breaking Point," where he and Sgt. John Martin lead soldiers around Foy after Lt. Norman Dyke freezes in terror behind a haystack.