Band of Brothers

"From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered, -
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile..."
- William Shakespeare, Henry V

I was on my mission when this series ran, and although I had seen bits and pieces of it on the History Channel, I had not seen the whole series; the amount of time one needs to watch the whole thing also restrained me. This past Christmas, however, I decided it was time and I purchased the set. Well worth the money. It has taken me four months, watching an episode when I get a free hour or so, but I finally finished it. In my opinion, this is some of the finest filmmaking in existence. It is an absolute masterpiece, from start to finish. It puts you in the action. You go through the same ups and downs as the soldiers. We've been a country that has glorified war; that can be seen in war movies through the years. It is refreshing to watch a movie that reflects the realities of war. William Tecumseh Sherman once said that "war is hell," and this movie portrays that hell. It's hard for me to imagine how they made it through. I think the main thing that kept them going was their brotherhood. I've read and heard many times that war is not about fighting for your country; it's about fighting for the guy next to you. It's about surviving. Not just you, but all of your buddies around you; and this movie shows the anguish these guys go through every time they lose one of their own. I imagine some become numb to all the death and destruction, I don't know, but when it comes down to it, we're all still human and losing our friends takes its toll. That was seen with one of the soldiers, who simply loses it after seeing two of his best friends, and men he felt responsible for, have their legs blown off. In some war movies, he might be depicted as a coward. This man was no coward, he is simply a human being, and sometimes a man can only take so much. That's the reality of war. Some portions of this series literally brought tears to my eyes. One part I had a particularly hard time with was when Easy Company entered the concentration camp. It's beyond my comprehension how human beings can be so cruel to each other. And not just Nazis, everyone has their dark sides, including the United States. But what Hitler and his cronies devised for the "Final Solution" to the Jewish Question (as well as any other ethnic minority the Fuhrer deemed impure), absolutely blows my mind. And they went about it with such a businesslike manner, which is the real creepy part of it. Their business was destroying lives; destroying entire races of people. But what I also liked about the movie was in the final episode, where it shows a German general addressing his men before they surrender. These were men just like the Americans, and the British, and all others that fought in the war. They weren't all Jew-hating Nazis; they were just doing what they felt was their duty, just like the rest of them. Many times we forget that the ones fighting on the other side are humans too, with the same feelings and emotions. All in all, this is quite possibly the best miniseries ever made, although Lonesome Dove definitely ranks up there in my opinion. Either way, it's an absolute masterpiece and one that I'm sure I will have to watch again and again to truly appreciate it and what those men did.