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rosiedoesNothing upon nothing could express the love and admiration I feel for the men of Easy Company - or the actors who portrayed them - right now.
In all seriousness, people, you need to see Band of Brothers, and the DVD extras, and you will look at the world so very differently afterward.
For most people, the World Wars are a terrible fairytale of Good vs. Evil and the cock-sure modern knights in armour who fought them. It's almost impossible to identify or see it as a real event beyond our grandparents' tatty ration books and photos of Gran as a land girl or the black and white snaps of Uncle Bob looking young and swarthy in his uniform or the painted American bombers bombing Germany and getting back in time for the USO ball. The quaint Britishness of the 1940s and the confident pride of the movie portrayals of the Americans so easily clouds what was in fact a horrific, half-decade long massacre on all sides. Rows of perfect, unnamed headstones in Normandy are a sad and poignant reminder but they can't express what life was truly like for the men they commemorate.
Band of Brothers is just a little snapshot of the truth; tales of some of the people who suffered horribly and laid down their lives for their country and each other, and who allowed us to live in the world we do today. It's not perfect. We still have George W. Bush. But it could have been so much worse.
If we had lost the war, I would never have been born - and neither would many of you. Our families would never have survived to see the 1950s.
I grew up fascinated by the military and obsessed with WWII. My favourite plane is and always was the B17 'Flying Fortress' - one of the most important aircraft of the war and the bird that became famous as the Memphis Belle. In my teens I spent so many weekends and Air Training Corps cadet camps at RAF bases and museums; bunkers, airfields, ranges, airshows, four consecutive Remembrance Parades at Runnymede RAF Memorial in our best dress blues. I collected for the RAFA around Poppy Day, I met veterans and stood in the very room from which the operations of the RAF were controlled - now a monument to that immense feat. I held the altimeter of one of my beloved B17s at fourteen years old and almost cried with awe.
But for all I have seen and all the stories I have heard of the British fight, nothing has brought the humanity - the absolute truth of the courage and strength of these men and of the love they felt for their friends (in the words of Ron Livingston, who portrayed Lewis Nixon, they were 'more than brothers') - home to me as clearly as Band of Brothers has.
Yes, I am naturally sentimental; yes, there are large numbers of pretty young men to look at. But mostly it is a reminder to me that the freedom we are all growing increasingly incensed at the restriction of, came at a very high price.
When people ask me who my heroes are, I always say 'My Friends', because I have seen and known them to come through the greatest trials life can throw at them and still remain strong. They're awesome people and I love them for it.
But I never say 'The Men of Easy Company' or 'Those Who Fought In WWII', because honestly? I think it should go without saying for all of us.
In all seriousness, people, you need to see Band of Brothers, and the DVD extras, and you will look at the world so very differently afterward.
For most people, the World Wars are a terrible fairytale of Good vs. Evil and the cock-sure modern knights in armour who fought them. It's almost impossible to identify or see it as a real event beyond our grandparents' tatty ration books and photos of Gran as a land girl or the black and white snaps of Uncle Bob looking young and swarthy in his uniform or the painted American bombers bombing Germany and getting back in time for the USO ball. The quaint Britishness of the 1940s and the confident pride of the movie portrayals of the Americans so easily clouds what was in fact a horrific, half-decade long massacre on all sides. Rows of perfect, unnamed headstones in Normandy are a sad and poignant reminder but they can't express what life was truly like for the men they commemorate.
Band of Brothers is just a little snapshot of the truth; tales of some of the people who suffered horribly and laid down their lives for their country and each other, and who allowed us to live in the world we do today. It's not perfect. We still have George W. Bush. But it could have been so much worse.
If we had lost the war, I would never have been born - and neither would many of you. Our families would never have survived to see the 1950s.
I grew up fascinated by the military and obsessed with WWII. My favourite plane is and always was the B17 'Flying Fortress' - one of the most important aircraft of the war and the bird that became famous as the Memphis Belle. In my teens I spent so many weekends and Air Training Corps cadet camps at RAF bases and museums; bunkers, airfields, ranges, airshows, four consecutive Remembrance Parades at Runnymede RAF Memorial in our best dress blues. I collected for the RAFA around Poppy Day, I met veterans and stood in the very room from which the operations of the RAF were controlled - now a monument to that immense feat. I held the altimeter of one of my beloved B17s at fourteen years old and almost cried with awe.
But for all I have seen and all the stories I have heard of the British fight, nothing has brought the humanity - the absolute truth of the courage and strength of these men and of the love they felt for their friends (in the words of Ron Livingston, who portrayed Lewis Nixon, they were 'more than brothers') - home to me as clearly as Band of Brothers has.
Yes, I am naturally sentimental; yes, there are large numbers of pretty young men to look at. But mostly it is a reminder to me that the freedom we are all growing increasingly incensed at the restriction of, came at a very high price.
When people ask me who my heroes are, I always say 'My Friends', because I have seen and known them to come through the greatest trials life can throw at them and still remain strong. They're awesome people and I love them for it.
But I never say 'The Men of Easy Company' or 'Those Who Fought In WWII', because honestly? I think it should go without saying for all of us.