#stephen e. ambrose

[yourspeirs]

Quoting Ambrose, "Nixon was a genius in addition to being a brave, common-sense soldier."

[pastlivesandpurplepuppets]

Slim, fairly tall, dark hair, stern, ruggedly handsome, he cultivated the look of a leader, and acted like it.

~ Stephen E. Ambrose

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mary Elaine LeBey : Sign of the Day... June 6th is eternally D-Day... and this beautiful tribute "sign" was created and shared today in 2015, right there on the beach at Normandy... and I love it ... Dunno who took it, but it was shared by the US Embassy in France.

* * * *

“You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!

Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower

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“Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that 'they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn't come here to fear. They hadn't come to die. They had come to win.” ― Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest

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“The road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt

[linusjf]

Stephen Ambrose: Looking out for number one

Stephen E. Ambrose (Photo credit: Wikipedia) “It does you no good to see the number two or number three man in the corporation-you have to get through to number one. ” —Stephen Ambrose.

[greendomine]

looks like its time to enjoy some... *[holds up my copy of Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose]* light reading 💁🏽

[ronsenthal]

"Slim, fairly tall, dark hair, stern, ruggedly handsome"

[charlottebartlett]

Wait, whut? I totally missed that Michael Fassbender was in Band of Brothers.

[runaeveena]

i give you the band of brothers character iceberg inspired by [x]

full detailing under the cut

Tier 1, signified by a stock image photo of an old man sitting on a bench with the words "Why don't you watch some TV with your ol' peepaw?" next to him.

- Winters, Nixon, Speirs, Compton, Luz, Lipton, Sobel, Roe

- this is the most basic tier. these are the characters your stepdad in the military remembers from watching the show after his tour or what your high school history teacher knows. hell this is what jimmy fallon remembers from the show.

Tier 2, signified by a screenshot of two 10+ old youtube videos entitled "Band of Brothers Funniest Moments"

- Guarnere, Webster, Malarkey, Liegbott, Toye, Randleman, Heffron, Blithe, Perconte

- this tier shows youve seen the show more than once, also best characterized by my college friend who would show me these videos as soon as i mentioned i liked bob despite the fact that he didnt actually know anything about world war two

Tier 3, signified by a tweet found here that basically makes fun of the current 101st Airborne

- Muck, Talbert, Dike, Grant, Sisk, Wynn, Sink, Powers, Hoobler, Welsh, Spina, Garcia, Penkala, Hall

- this is entering true fandom territory. youve seen the show more than five times or interact with enough bob content to pick up other characters. or youre an obsessed military official who uses bob as propaganda to stir up the current airborne infantry

Tier 4, signified by a screenshot of the Band of Brothers reddit tag

- O'Keefe, Tipper, Meehan, Cobb, More, Heyliger, Janovec, Gordon, Evans, Strayer, Christenson, Peacock, Miller, Hashey

- you are actually genuinely unfortunately a deep fan of this show and you are forever marked

Tier 5, signified by the tumblr tag #hbo war

- Ramirez, Alley, Vest, McClung, Shames, Dukeman, Van Klinken, Julian, Lorraine, Plesha, Petty

- hi girlies ;)

Tier 6 and 7, signified by the front page of the Band of Brothers fandom wiki page

- Smith Jr., Zielinski, Lesniewksi

- Boyle, Rodgers, Mellet

- as stated in my little notes, if you're an admin for the bob fandom wikia you have more power than anyone in the world like the level of imdb searching this requires is more harrowing than actual war

Tier 8, signified by a screenshot of the Stephen E. Ambrose Austria tours with Band of Brothers casts, a screenshot of Matthew Leitch's reunion youtube with other actors, and the Dead Eyes Podcast cover

- the other Zielinski

- you know way to much to be a weird fan

Tier 9, signified by a stock image of a pile of books

- Burr Smith

- you are a scholar

[aviationgeek71]

“The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it.”

— Ronald Speirs, "Band of Brothers" 2001 miniseries, based on historian Stephen E. Ambrose's 1992 non-fiction book of the same name. 

Image is actor Matthew Settle, as Ronald Speirs.

[shelyue99]

I came across BoB only last year (thanks Netflix the best thing you have done to me) hence 22 years late. I wish I had done it earlier (I definitely heard about the title, maybe in the 2000s, but I was too young at the time to take interests in it and I forgot about it), but because of it there are already a lot of resources and materials (and numerous fanfics) to dig into. I love research and meta and here are something I found interesting and relevant to BoB (with a focus on Winters and Nixon) :

Documentary:

Ron Livingston's Band of Brothers Video Diary

We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company

He Has Seen War

Book:

Band of Brothers, by Stephen E. Ambrose

Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoir of Major Dick Winters, by Dick Winters, Cole C. Kingseed

Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, The Man Who Led the Band of Brothers, by Larry Alexander

Conversation with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers, by Cole C. Kingseed

Hang Tough: The WWII Letters and Artifacts of Major Dick Winters, by Erik Dorr, Jared Frederick

Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich, by David Kenyon Webster

Tinderbox: HBO's Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers, By James Andrew Miller

Podcast:

HBO's official Band of Brothers 20th Anniversary Podcast

The Ross Owen Show, this blog has all the BoB cast interview recordings.

Dead Eyes

Other Materials:

"Band of Brothers" 20th Anniversary Symposium, the video can be found here.

Re the symposium, I love some of the trivia stories the cast shared, like when some replacement guy (I remembered it's Rene Moreno who played Ramirez but my memory could be fuzzy) were having dinner with the OG Easy men at this posh restaurant after shooting. Someone asked Moreno what he did today and he said he cut his hair and got to shoot the gun something like that, and Neal McDonough (Compton) asked him to drop and gave him 20, Moreno looked at Ron Livingston for help, who he thought was the only normal person at the table, but Ron was like yeah you had to do it, and so he dropped and did 20 push-ups and startled the waitress and other customers.

The other interesting episode is that when they were shooting for the river crossing scene in Ep 8, a replacement guy (Ramirez or Hashey?) who wasn't in the bootcamp and wasn't that immersed, jokingly told Dexter Fletcher (Martin) to fuck off, everyone went quiet like how dare you say to that to the officer, and Ross McCall (Liebgott) asked, "Permission to throw him off the boat, sir," Fletcher said let him think about it. They didn't throw him off the boat but I find the comparison between those who went to the bootcamp vs. those didn't and thus didn't have a clue is so interesting. Oh, and Matthew Settle still scared the other cast and staff because Speirs is so scary lol.

[yourspeirs]

Speirs was an officer with a reputation. Slim, fairly tall, dark hair, stern, ruggedly handsome, he cultivated the look of a leader, and acted it.

[pastlivesandpurplepuppets]

Webster was a man of books and libraries, a reader and a writer, thrown into an intimate and life-dependent relationship with ill-educated hillbillies, southern farmers, coal miners, lumbermen, fishermen, and other typical paratrooper enlisted men—in short, with a group of men with whom he had nothing in common. He would not have particularly liked or disliked them in civilian life—he just would not have known them. Yet it was among this unlikely group of men that Webster found his closest friendships and enjoyed most thoroughly the sense of identification with others. He was wounded in Holland, in October, 1944. He rejoined his squad in January, 1945, and later he recalled his feelings: “It was good to be back with fellows I knew and could trust. Listening to the chatter, I felt warm and relaxed inside, like a lost child who has returned to a bright home full of love after wandering in a cold black forest.” He went on: “You felt like part of a big family. You are closer to these men than you will ever be to any civilians.”

~ Stephen E. Ambrose

[freddiegene]

Let’s take a look at Steve Roger’s TBR 📚

Books recommend:

Red, White, & Blue by Casey McQuiston

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Maus by Art Spiegelman

Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose

[hbowardaily]

79th Anniversary of D-Day - June 6th, 1944.

“Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that ‘they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn’t come here to fear. They hadn’t come to die. They had come to win.’” - Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose | caps by @tvserie-s-world

[evidenceof]

About that wake up call

"Nixon was a hard man to get out of the sack in the morning," according to Winters. One day in November, Winters wanted to get an early start. Nixon, as usual, could not be talked into getting up. Winters went to his bed, grabbed his feet while he was still in his sleeping bag, and threw them over his shoulder.

"Are you going to get up?"

"Go away, leave me alone."

Winters noticed that the water pitcher was half-full. Still holding Nixon's feet on his shoulder, he grabbed the pitcher and started pouring the contents on Nixon's face. Nixon opened his eyes. He was horrified. "No! No!" he begged. Too late, the contents were on their way. Only then did Winters realize that Nixon had not gone outside to piss away the liquor he had drunk, but used the water pitcher instead. Nixon yelled and swore, then started laughing. The two officers decided to go into Nijmegen to investigate the rumor that hot showers were available for officers there.

From Stephen E. Ambrose - Band of Brothers E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's

[jonberry555]

Band of Brothers COMPLETE REVIEW | COMPILATION

Band of Brothers is a 2001 American war drama miniseries about Easy Company (of 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, assigned to the 101st Airborne Division) based on historian Stephen E. Ambrose's 1992 non-fiction book of the same name. It was created by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks for HBO. This video is a compilation of my individuals reviews for each episode.