Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced a mini-series called Band of Brothers.  It is now available on DVD.  It is a series of ten one-hour segments, and it is the true story of a company of soldiers in the 101^st Airborne paratroopers during World War II, from the formation of the unit and the training in the U.S. to the date some years later when it was disbanded after the end of the war. 

Going through these DVDs is perhaps the most rewarding film experience I’ve ever had.  There is a lot of violence; it is a war film.  Some people may have poor tolerance for that characteristic of the story.  But if the violence isn’t a turn-off, I don’t see any other reason why anyone wouldn’t put this series among the best films they’ve seen. 

Band of Brothers isn’t about what led up to the war, or the politics.  It’s about soldiers who jumped from planes into Europe behind enemy lines on D-Day, and were at the point of the allied advance through Europe from then (June 6, 1944) to the end of the war in Europe (May 8, 1945).  This particular company of soldiers was highly decorated.  They participated in several famous events during the allied advance.  But it wasn’t fun and games.  This particular unit suffered 150% casualties – meaning that during the war it required approximately 225 replacements to maintain their fighting strength of about 150 men.  Despite this remarkable casualty rate, many of the original soldiers survived the war.  In fact, one of the more interesting studies in the series is the phenomenon that the “new replacements” tended to die at a very high rate; but if they could survive their first few combat experiences, they tended to survive.  The acumen of the more experienced men tended to keep them alive. 

The ten segments of the film are very richly produced.  The budget was $120,000,000.00.  Most of the actors weren’t well-known stars, but all were masters of the craft of acting and well cast.  They were cast in part for their resemblance to the true-life person they represented.  At the beginning of each segment, there are interviews with some of the real life people, octogenarian veterans represented by the actors in the segment.  It isn’t necessary to embellish how touching this is.  Old men, grandfathers, who once put their life on the line, looking back, often with tears, at the intensity of the experience – the thrill of liberating cities where people staged impromptu parades in their honor, the agony of watching their best friends die in battle, the horror of discovering the Nazi death camps and the emaciated inmates who at first stared in disbelief at their liberators, and the life-and-death bond that formed between a group of men who depended on each other utterly for survival.

The group is Easy Company.  A company is a group of men in the military, usually consisting of about 150 soldiers.  The word “Easy” is for the letter “E”.  The companies were lettered, and were described by the words that go with these letters in the military phonetic alphabet; Alpha, Bravo, Charlie etc. 

World War II was unlike most wars we’ve experienced as Americans.  There was a widespread perception that this war was about a great deal more than the lives and freedom of people in some foreign country.  The sharp expansion of the Nazi war machine threatened to swallow up all of Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia.  The Japanese army had already taken over much of the Far East and had already attacked Hawaii.  America, England and their very few allies were seen as the last defense against a world engulfed completely by fascism, in which our cherished liberties would be lost forever.  Regardless of the political shenanigans that created the environment where Hitler came to power, and regardless of any evil forces behind the creation and escalation of the war in its early years, it is hard to disagree with the urgency of the situation, even viewing it now from our safe historical perspective decades later.  If America and the West hadn’t come to the rescue, the odds in Las Vegas for the survival of democracy and freedom in the world wouldn’t have been good.  Despite the draft, most young men volunteered for military service.  It was seen as a duty.  The men who went were mostly aware at some level that they were doing this to save the world.  This viewpoint was so strong in America that men who couldn’t go for some reason often moved away from their home towns in embarrassment.  A few even committed suicide.  This included men who were rejected by the military for physical reasons.  It also included men who received legitimate exemptions as workers in “essential” industries.  In the story of Easy Company there is mention of a man who concealed his exemption as an essential worker to enlist.  There were many who lied about their age.  More than in most wars, these soldiers were there with a purpose. 

The film does not back down from any essential part of the WW II American military experience.  We live with these soldiers for 10 hours of film and we get to know them well.  We meet their cowards and their heroes.  We share with them their misery sleeping in open foxholes in subzero temperatures; or trying to save a downed buddy on the field of action, daunted by the certain knowledge that anyone who runs out there to pull him to safety will be shot; swearing a blue streak at insane orders from upper command to execute what is little more than a suicide mission – then performing it anyway and pulling it off; holding the line against superior forces, out of food, inadequately dressed for the freezing cold, using their wits and the little ammunition they have left, waiting for supplies, replacements and reinforcements with no real idea of when these replenishments might occur, or even whether they would occur at all. 

These were the soldiers that held the line in the famous battle at Bastogne – paratroopers with little more than their rifles and a few machine guns against German troops with tanks and cannons at the Battle of the Bulge (so-called because the Germans threw everything they had into this one last attempt to break through the allied line, creating a sizeable “bulge” in the line).  They were also the soldiers that captured Hitler’s personal “Eagle’s Nest” bunker in Austria.  Both of these events were front page news at home during the war. 

This is a series of DVDs that can have an effect like a very good book – keep you up at night watching the next segment, then the one after that, when you should be going to bed.  Use your self control when you begin.  By the second or third DVD you’re going to be seriously hooked.  The handsomely packaged box set would make an excellent Christmas present for anyone who doesn’t faint at the sight of blood. 

Perhaps it is best summed up in the words of Richard Winter, the decorated Captain who led this group through the war.  Interviewed as an old man, he talks about being asked by his grandchildren whether he was a hero in the war.  “No, I wasn’t a hero,” he replies, as tears well up in his eyes, “But I certainly served with a company of heroes.”