Band of Brothers
My wife and I recently did a re-watch (for me) of the HBO series Band of Brothers. It tells the story of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne in World War II. It's based on true stories and real people and I can't say enough good things about it. It was a fantastic miniseries that I would highly recommend to anyone.
The Series
I originally watched Band of Brothers in 2023 after putting it off for too long of a time. I loved the series then as well. I wanted to do a re-watch of it after reading Inferno and Armageddon by Sir Max Hastings. Easy Company was mentioned a few times in one or both of the books so I wanted to re-visit the series, as well as introduce my wife to it.
We watched all the episodes and I was again blown away by how well the series was done. The acting, the writing and directing were all top-notch. I also appreciate how they don't shy away from the hell that World War II was, and war as a whole, still is and will always be. The series does a good job of recognizing and honoring what the soldiers went through, while also keeping true to the story, hell, suffering, and all.
The Podcast
There was a companion podcast released in 2021 that I decided to listen to this time around. It was actually really enlightening. They had writers and some of the actors on talking about how they wrote the episodes, how they prepared to take on the role of characters who in some cases felt larger than life. How everyone talked to the soldiers if they were still alive at the time, and their friends, families and loved ones. Hearing about how much work went into it to try to stay true to history was impressive and I would highly recommend listening to it, especially as you watch the episodes.
- Episode 1 Prologue with Tom Hanks
- Episode 2 with John Orloff & Richard Loncraine
- Episode 3 "Carentan" with Capt. Dale Dye & Matthew Settle
- Episode 4 with Frank John Hughes
- Episode 5 with Erik Jendresen
- Episode 6 "Bastogne" with Shane Taylor
- Episode 7 "The Breaking Point" With Donnie Wahlberg
- Episode 8 The Last Patrol (with Scott Grimes)
- Episode 9 Why We Fight (with Ross McCall & John Orloff)
- Episode 10 with Damian Lewis
The Book
I would be remiss if I didn't of course mention the book that it was based on. I just checked Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose out from the library and started reading it. The series got a lot of the story from the book, the podcast (of course) highly recommended it, so now it's time to read it. History is always fascinating to me, so I have no doubt I'll likely learn even more from the book.