Band Of Brothers Essay

Band of Brothers is written by Stephen E. Ambrose, and follows the E (Easy) company, 506th regiment, 101st Airborne on their journey as paratroopers throughout World War II. Ambrose was born in Lovington, Illinois on January 10, 1936. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and majored in history. Ambrose was a history professor for thirty-five years, in addition authoring many books, including famous biographies on Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon. In 1988, Ambrose attended an Easy Company reunion. Here he got the inspiration to write Band of Brothers, and began collecting the veteran’s stories. The book was published in 1992.

In the summer of 1942, the men in Easy underwent extreme physical conditioning and training in the

training camp Toccoa. Easy first went into combat on June 6th, 1942, when they parachuted onto the beaches of Normandy, France. After the decisive victory, Easy proceeded to fight in Holland, liberating Eindhoven, but were soon forced to retreat. At the Battle of the Bulge, in Bastogne, Easy defended the front lines, entrenched in snow for almost a month. They became surrounded and could not receive supplies for several days. However, they managed to hold the position long enough for the area to be secured by reinforcements, and the company received unit citations for their outstanding performance. Easy was finally assigned occupational duty in Berchtesgaden, then in Austria.

Band of Brothers is highly successful in not only capturing the essence of what it meant to be a civilian soldier in World War II, but demonstrates how the war built unbreakable friendship and trust between the men in Easy company.

I agree with Ambrose’s conclusions about the comradeship these men experienced and military facts he presented. They were backed with insurmountable evidence in the forms of letters and interviews, in addition to being presented both rationally and passionately. Band of Brothers not only matched up with and supported the information in the textbook on World War II, but added a whole new dimension to the war. By examining World War II through the miniscule scale of a single company rather than the larger scope of entire armies, Ambrose helps the reader to better understand the courage and sacrifice of individual soldiers. The book could not be improved any way: it provided important historical facts and interesting details throughout, kept me constantly engaged with an interesting story, and provided useful and moving lessons on the comradeship formed under stress and the immense satisfaction of being a part of something much bigger than oneself. I thoroughly enjoyed Band of Brothers for many reasons. The detailed way Ambrose described combat maneuvers and military conflicts was very engaging. It was interesting to read about World War II from the perspective of the soldiers actually on the front lines fighting. Getting to hear their opinions and

how they reacted to leadership provided a new insight to military life. I would recommend this book to both people who are interested in World War II, as it provides a new take on the war from the view of an individual company, and those who are not. The comradeship between the soldiers, displays of courage in the face of death, and spirit of fight for something bigger than oneself makes Band of Brothers a moving and powerful book for anyone to enjoy, World War II fanatic or not.

In conclusion, Band of Brothers is a powerful book about the stories: success and sacrifice, of Easy Company throughout World War II. Stephen E. Ambrose not only accomplished his purposes, but crafted a masterpiece out of the stories of these men.

In Band of Brothers, Ambrose has two main purposes. His primary goal is to inform the reader about the events in World War II through the perspective of Easy Company. He does this by describing different individuals experiences to, as well as including general information about the company as a whole. His second purpose is to teach the lesson of how these men bonded through coping with extreme stress and pressure together, and of the relationship of trust and friendship that grew out of their shared experiences. He does this through providing personal conversations between the men, as well as excerpts out of letters from the wounded.

Ambrose is very successful in describing World War II exactly as Easy saw it. When Major Winters describes his reaction to orders to attack Noville, the reader gets a clearer picture of the opinions many soldiers held on the endless fighting without rest. “I could not believe that after what we had gone through and done, after all the casualties we had suffered, they were putting us into an attack. It just had the flavor of an ego trip for General Taylor, a play to show Eisenhower that not that Taylor’s back his troops will get off their asses and go into the attack” (213). “Dike came up with a plan. It consisted of sending 1st platoon on a wide flanking movement to the left, to circle the village and launch an attack from the far side. Meanwhile, he would direct machine-gun and mortar fire from the haystacks” (208)

In the end of the book, Ambrose lists short descriptions of