In band of brothers, the soldiers refer to points.what are these and how were they earned?

Question

in the last episode, the soldiers refer to points and from what i can gather, they had to earn points in order to be discharged from the army. what were these points, how would you earn them and does this point system exist today? thankyou

Answer 1

Check this out:

http://members.aol.com/ItalyWW2/Points.h...

Answer 2

I cannot fully answer this question i do know however that the point system does no longer exist.

And also that this is one of the best war series ever put to film.

Answer 3

The point system was to determine if you would be shipped back to the US, stay in Europe where the war was over or be shipped to the Pacific to be part of the invasion of Japan, no system like that exists today because the people in the military have length of service contracts.  In World War Two you were in the military whether you were drafted or joined voluntarily until the war was over.  To make it more fair the Army developed a point system where the people who had been deployed the shortest period of time and seen the least combat would be the ones sent to the Pacific and the others would either go back to the US or stay in Germany as part of the Occupation forces.  Thesystem had to do with how long outside the US, how long in service, medals given (purple Heart, Siver Star, and so forth), battles in and so on.

Answer 4

That type of points system isn't in use today.  At the end of the war, if you had enough points then you could go home; otherwise you had to stay because we needed a large occupying force to stay there.  I'm not sure how you earned them but I think it had to do with time in service, decorations, rank, etc.

Answer 5

The points system referred to in that series had to do with length of service, locations and combat. Therefore a person that had enlisted in 1939 and had been with the Big Red One or 82nd would have been shipped home pronto, while a FNG who got drafted in 1944 would have been shipped out to do occupation duty or take on the Japanese.