Let’s Salute Major Winters – the Rank and the Man – on Memorial Day

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source: People Magazine

Today is Memorial Day – a day of remembrance honoring all men and women that died in active military service. And it gives us a great opportunity to salute all war heroes, and in particular Major Dick Winters and Easy Company.

I know a thing or two about war. My day job is to study and understand war. I have written academic articles on war, I have taught on war… and even though I can write about war for pages and talk about it for hours as a scholar, the human cost of war is still incomprehensible to me.

Let me take a moment and look at my own family. My maternal grandmother never knew her father because he was a soldier in WWI in the Eastern Front in Turkey, and he literally froze because of the cold as he fought against the Russians. My paternal grandmother never knew her father, either; because he was also a soldier in WWI and was killed by a shrapnel in Gallipoli as he fought against the Anzacs. Continue reading “Let’s Salute Major Winters – the Rank and the Man – on Memorial Day”

Trivia Tuesday: How did Damian Lewis transform into Dick Winters?

‘It’s very authentic, dripping in sincerity, there’s nothing sensational about it. It had a docu-drama feel to it which people responded to. –Damian Lewis on Band of Brothers

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We earlier blogged about how a 29-year old British actor Damian Lewis got cast to play all-American WWII hero Dick Winters as well as the deft and the charisma with which Damian Lewis came to immortalize Dick Winters on small screen. However, we still have a black box between the casting and the shoot: How did Damian Lewis TRANSFORM into Dick Winters?

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Well… Once he gets the part, the two Hollywood giants Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks leave the room and Tony To, the executive producer, asks: “Hey Damian, how’d you like to go to boot camp in March?”

Ha! The boot camp… It is, in fact, what FILLS the black box I’ve been talking about… The Transformation, quoting Damian himself, from “a rice pudding” to a “celery stalk” 🙂

Continue reading “Trivia Tuesday: How did Damian Lewis transform into Dick Winters?”

Band of Humanity

By the end of the World War II, it is estimated that 6 million Jews and another 5 million people (consisting of Gypsies, Poles, Homosexuals, Soviet PoWs and the mentally and physically disabled) were murdered by the Nazis.

It seems appropriate to post this in April. During World War two many Nazi Camps were liberated. A fair number of the camps were liberated during April 1945, as World War II approached its end. The sheer number of camps is staggering and horrifying. Continue reading “Band of Humanity”

Trivia Tuesday: Tom Hanks’ Surprise for Damian Lewis on his 30th Birthday

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Welcome to the most special week of the year: Damian’s Birthday Week! We plan a cute little Birthday Party for our favorite guy on the blog on Thursday and Friday but why not kick off the celebrations today with a lovely trivia about Damian’s 30th Birthday?

We all know Tom Hanks played a major role in making Damian an internationally known actor. We blogged earlier about how Spielberg and Hanks cast Damian Lewis as Dick Winters in Band of Brothers.

source: tircuit.com
source: tircuit.com

Damian tells Independent that, once he was cast for the role, he had the opportunity to hang out with Steven Spielberg as well as Tom Hanks for a while, and in his own words, got to know, “what kids they are.” 🙂 Continue reading “Trivia Tuesday: Tom Hanks’ Surprise for Damian Lewis on his 30th Birthday”

Major Dick Winters: We Salute the Rank and the Man

damianlewisdickwinters2
source: People Magazine

Major Richard Winters died 5 years ago today. He is the real life hero that we all have come to know as the charismatic and compassionate commander of Easy Company in Band of Brothers. His obituary in Washington Post makes a note about his  leadership through a letter written by Floyd Talbert, one of his soldiers, to thank Major Winters for his loyalty and leadership in the war: “You are loved and will never be forgotten by any soldier that ever served under you. I would follow you into hell.”

After the war, Major Winters led a quiet and peaceful life on his farm in Fredericksburg and in his home in Hershey, Pennsylvania until Band of Brothers — the book as well as the TV series — put him into the international spotlight. He was a true WWII hero who was never comfortable being called one. When asked if he was a hero, he liked to answer the way his WWII buddy Mike Ranney did to his grandson: “No, but I served in a company of heroes.” This became a major tagline in Band of Brothers.

Major Winters died like he lived. Quietly. And, upon his request, his funeral service was private and unannounced. We are honored to make a tribute to his great war hero on this day.  Continue reading “Major Dick Winters: We Salute the Rank and the Man”