Lewis Nixon III seems to have inherited at least a little bit of his grandfather’s affinity for ships: he took third place at a model yacht regatta at the age of seven.
 
2 – Military service ran deep in the family
Nixon’s family fought in every single American war since the Revolutionary War. In fact, one of his direct ancestors was General Andrew Lewis, George Washington’s chief of staff and one of the founders of Richmond, Virginia.

3 – He came from a doubly rich background
It’s well known that Nixon’s family was wealthy on the paternal side, with Nixon Nitration Works and the adjacent town of Nixon, New Jersey bearing that name for a reason. What is less common knowledge is that Nixon’s mother also came from a rich background. They had 10,000 acres of land in the Sacramento area and a villa in France. Nixon himself visited the villa during his travels to England, France and Germany as a youth – he later inherited it and eventually leased it to the Kennedy family.

5 – He became a paratrooper to escape military police
To be more specific, he wasn’t fleeing from military police – he was in it. After Officer Candidate School, Nixon was sent to Fort Ord, California, as military police. He quickly came to hate the position and having to deal with drunks all the time, and tried to be transferred to a combat unit. His first request was denied, so he tried again by volunteering for airborne service, which, apparently, could not be denied and gave him a way out of being an MP.
 
6 – He made a run to Utah Beach
During the Battle of Brécourt Manor (Dick Winters’s First Battle), Winters found a German map showing the positions of all artillery batteries in Normandy. He gave it to Nixon, who recognized its importance and immediately ran three miles (5 km) to Utah Beach (The Utah Beach Museum)
 to deliver the map. In exchange for the invaluable information, the first two tanks coming ashore were sent directly to Winters’s position to help him and his troops.

7 – He received the luckiest headshot in history
During Operation Market Garden (Operation Market Garden), a round from a German MG 42 machine gun hit Nixon in the head. Miraculously, the bullet entered the helmet at an angle, brushed against his forehead leaving a burn mark without breaking the skin, then exited the helmet on the other side.
 
8 – He was one of the very few men in the Screaming Eagles who made three combat jumps
The vast majority of the 101st Airborne Division made two combat jumps: Normandy and Market Garden. Nixon was one of the rare exceptions. During Operation Varsity, the airborne component of crossing the Rhine into Germany, he accompanied the 17th Airborne Division (The Golden Talons) as an observer. He was the jumpmaster on the C-47 (The C-47) he was flying on, and was therefore the closest to the door. The plane took a direct hit and only Nixon and three others managed to jump out alive.

9 – He didn’t get along with Buck Compton
In the TV show, Nixon comes across as a very likeable character, thanks in no small part to actor Ron Livingston. In real life, however, Nixon had at least one long-running animosity, with Lynn “Buck” Compton from Easy Company.
 
The difference in their backgrounds probably played a role – Nixon was a wealthy, well-educated playboy, Compton a typical All-American jock who only joined the company later, and did not suffer the wrath of Lieutenant Sobel with the rest.

In an interview long after the war, Compton called Nixon “a prick” and recounted a meeting with him. At some point after the Normandy landings, Easy Company was back in Aldbourne, England for R&R, and Compton and Nixon happened to meet each other and sit around outside talking. Nixon suddenly said “You know, I got no damn use for you jocks. You’re a bunch of jerks. When I was in college, I had girlfriends and we used to party a lot, and you’re out sweating and practicing.“ “Well, you know, to everybody his own thing” – Compton replied. 
 
Soon after, despite being an intelligence officer at battalion HQ and having no formal direct control over Compton, Nixon made him Battalion Physical Fitness Officer, which meant he had to take the men on long runs every morning. To add insult to injury, Nixon ruled that the enlisted men could run in T-shirts and jump pants, while the officers (meaning only Compton) had to wear wool shirts and neckties.

The hostility did not end with the war. Donald Malarkey recounted that Nixon ended up badmouthing Compton at an Easy Company reunion, calling him a coward for being taken off the line at Bastogne. (Stephen Ambrose’s book and the Band of Brothers TV show based on it imply he was removed after a nervous breakdown; the official paperwork cites a bad case of trench foot.) Malarkey came to Compton’s defense and shut Nixon up by asking him how many Silver Stars he had – referring to the fact that Compton was decorated with the award, but Nixon wasn’t.)
 
10 – His drinking problem was far worse than depicted in the show
We do see Nixon enjoy his drink in the Band of Brothers miniseries, but the show toned it down. In real life, Nixon was already a heavy drinker and party animal in college. As it is often case, he was the son of an alcoholic father, who was also drinking from an early age. In 1914, Stanhope Wood Nixon, Lewis Nixon’s father, was arrested for assaulting and almost killing a telephone engineer after a wine party attended by many students. He was let off the hook by the judge, who was a fellow Yale boy. The next year, he was arrested for robbery, which he claimed he committed on a dare. Much later, after World War II, when Dick Winters was working for Nixon Nitration Works as general manager, a drunk Stanhope once pointed a gun at Winters.