Thank you WWII Vets, the video speaks for itself:



Chris

 

For anyone who's read or watched the Band of Brothers, Don Malarkey is an old family friend. One of the original 101st airborne. Have a couple of other friends still living, several others gone now, that were ww2 vets, just not made semi famous. Most wouldn't talk about their experiences in the war. Those still surviving are talking more freely now. Thus all the books, movies, etc coming out lately. These guys realize, as their fellow vets are disappearing, if they don't talk now no one will ever here the stories.

I am extremely grateful to all the veterans past and present willing to put themselves in harms way whether it was for a crappy paycheck or national pride. I can't imagine volunteering to be shot at.

 

Band of Brothers, one of the best docudramas ever. It covers the D-Day invasion from the perspective of the air drop. Also the Battle of the Bulge part of the story really puts things in perspective; it was a frozen hell.

So does Don Malarkey think that Stephen Ambrose got it right more or less? I've been thinking about reading the book.

 

My landlord at my office is a WWII vet. I need to convince to sit down and tell me stories.
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I own it, I liked it as a historian...Ambrose is a good pop-historian...knows how to interest people who aren't geeky history professors.

Band of Brothers is/was awesome.


Also, glad someone brought this up. People forget how much all of our forefathers sacrificed and did for us.

 

Band of Brothers the book was pretty well on. Don met with Ambose many times exchanging stories during the research phase. The HBO series took some liberties with order and who did what but was a pretty good representation according to Don. He traveled several times to meet with Ambrose, Hanks and Speilberg before and during production. Also spent time with the actor playing him. There's lots of detail, but I don't want the OPs thread to turn into "band of brothers".

Since the book and then the series came out I think all ww2 vets are seeing increased attention and honor they deserve. Not just the 101st but everyone involved in the war. For Don personally it has made a huge difference in his life. He travels regularly to speak at military bases, schools, etc. His personal book was published recently. It is great to see him honored so late in his life and he is truly touched and appreciative of it.

 

One of the amazing things about those guys is that they won't talk about it much - even if you ask, you just get generic "war sucks" kind of stuff. My dad did the island-invasion bit with the Marines in the South Pacific, got machine-gunned on Saipan, bullets in the neck and hand(pretty much totalled). My father-in-law got shot up at Anzio, needs a brace and/or a cane to walk. They talk to each other about combat, like it's some sort of club nobody else can belong to. We're not allowed in.

They are also both adamant that none of their progeny will go to war.

I have a friend named Rocky - 85, Marine vet. We were playing golf at a course in the Bronx a few years ago, when a couple of Japanese guys, confused, asked us which way to the first tee.

"You found Pearl Harbor OK, didn't you?"

I damn near fainted. Then LOL'd after they left.

 

Have to say the experiences of those in the Pacific were very different from those in Europe. It's all war and horrifying but it was a different kind of combat and race was a bigger factor there. The Marines in the Pacific went through a different kind of hell.

 

On a semi-related subject - a friend at work found hi-res versions of these 2 USS Iowa photos and blew them up to poster-size for our work area.
Check out the sideways wake.
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That's ok, quite on topic.

I too enjoyed the Band of Brothers book and series.

Chris