Rader, Robert James “Rook”, born 09-10-1923, in Manchester, 
Adams County, Ohio, USA. Robert’s family was very poor. To make sure everyone got food, Robert made a difficult choice.He enlisted in the Ohio National Guard 
and did so illegally, because he was underage, he was 16 at the time. This was so he would get fed by the National Guard and his servings would go to those at home, instead. He got paid around $0.72 a day.
Robert lived in the same town as Donald Brenton “Hoob” Hoobler. 
a member of Easy Company, 506th at Camp Toccoa, Georgia and was made a rifleman in 3rd Squad, 1st Platoon. They were close friends throughout their childhood. They played sports, swam in the nearby Ohio River, and even stole some watermelons. His love of sports continued in High School, and he started playing a few. Pearl Harbor 
occurred while Robert was still in the National Guard. He was not in the National Guard for long after that, because they found out his real age and kicked him out. They gave him an honorable discharge, which would allow him to sit the war out. Once out of the National Guard, Robert went back to high school and graduated in 1942. He was the first in his family to ever graduate high school.
Donald Hoobler was the one who talked him and another friend William Alexander Howell 
into enlisting in the paratroopers. 
From left Robert Rader – Donald Hoobler – William Alexander Howell, during an exercise at Clemson University 
. Hoobler died during the Battle of the Bulge after accidentally wounding himself with a captured German pistol. Howell was seriously wounded on 03-01-1945 during the same shelling in which Joseph J “Joe”Toy
and Guarnere, William Joseph ”Wild Bill” were wounded.
here with the webmaster.
They enlisted a few short months after Robert’s graduate on 22-08-1942 at Fort Thomas Newport, in Kentucky..
Robert was one of the original Toccoa men. 
He got the lovely joy of training under the blessing that is the not very popular Herbert Maxwell Sobel Jr. 
Guarnere gave him the nickname Rook. Although no one knows quite why he was given that nickname since he didn’t play chess.
When D-Day arrived, Robert was with Easy Company. 
His plane had Martin, John W “Johnny”
in it. He was sitting next to Martin when a shell burst through the plane and between their heads. Their plane took 250 hits altogether.
Robert, af ter the landing, like most of Easy, lost all of his weapons in his jump. His landing in a pasture, was not a great one either. He landed hard, fracturing 3 vertabrae in his back. He ignored the pain and continued, he never did get this injury checked or fixed.
Around the area of Carentan, 
Robert was in charge of a small squad. His squad engaged a group of Hitler Youth 
in combat. When the boys stated they’d die for Adolf Hitler, 
Robert knew they’d have to kill them. When they stopped firing, he saw boys, both his own and the Hitler Youth, laying out dead on the ground. At that moment, Robert promised that he’d focus the rest of his life on helping children.
In Holland, for Operation Market Garden, 
he was injured during combat. While hiding in a barn, a man next to Robert started cleaning his gun. It went off and hit Robert in the elbow. Robert was sent to the nearby aid station but they couldn’t send him back to England, there was no way for him to get a ship home at that moment. Without a way to England, Robert went back to Easy Company. When he arrived, he performed a bayonet charge shortly after.Injured arm and all.
After returning from Holland, the boys were taken to Mourmelon. On their journey to Bastogne, 
they were given hot chocolate. But whoever drank it, ended getting horribly sick. Robert was one of the boys who drank it and spent his trip feeling awful.
Bastogne was cold. They had very little supplies and ammo and no winter weather gear. They were in the middle of a terrible winter and were completely unprepared for fighting during it. The cold was so bad, Robert’s eyelids froze open. He soon lost the feeling in his legs and arms. He even got shot in the hip at Bastogne and didn’t notice until 1987, more than 40 years later, during a CAT scan that had picked up his injury.
But the men did have some relief. Robert and Hoobler, the two best friends, took Christmas Eve night post, leaving the rest of the men to relax. It was their version of a Christmas present to everyone, sparing them the struggle.
Hoobler “Hoob” died shortly afterwards on 03-01-1945, age 22. Robert was deeply upset and affected by the death of Hoobler, his friend from childhood.
Near Foy, Robert instructed his men to dig their foxholes out in the open field,
farther away from the shelter of the trees. This would let his men be exposed, causing some panic among his squad. But they listened anyways. Robert was proven right when shelling went over the heads of Robert’s squad and into the forest around them, shattering trees and anything in its way. His squad was fine, without any major injuries.
Robert was discharged November 1945. He declined to receive a Purple Heart, 
according to him “others had suffered more than he did”. Instead, he received two Bronze Stars for his bravery.
He did keep in touch with men from Easy Company. He wrote letters and had Denver “Bull” Randleman 
and Myron N. ‘Mike’ Ranney 
visit a few times. He was extremely close with Bull. He also was visited by Staff Sergeant Leo J Matz, a squad member of his. He signed his letters to Easy Company: “Robert James Rader, here. Be good. Be careful. Sleep Warm.”
He adjusted fairly easy to normal life, but like every Easy Company man, seemed to struggle with the winter months. Bastogne and Hoobler’s death hit him hard. Whenever the holidays came around, he got quiet for days at a time. When his daughter asked, he explained Christmas reminded him of Hoobler.
Robert James ‘Rook” Rader left this world on 07-04-1997, age 73 and is buried at the Paso Robles District Cemetery, Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo County, California, USA. 45 Nacimiento Lake Dr, Paso Robles, CA 93446, USA. Section 129 F 48.
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