Band of Brothers: America's Greatest Heroes

                One of my all time favorite war stories is Band of Brothers, a book turned HBO mini-series which follows a company of Paratroopers through their ordeal during World War II.  This true story is told from the view point of several specific men as they travel from the beaches of Normandy all the way to one of the first discovered concentration camps.  The story is divided into ten chapters, each an hour long, and shows how war affects each character in different ways.  The only effect that all of these men shared was the sense of trust that they each had for one another.  Without each other, these men would surely have died over seas.  I would like to point out a few characters and how war effected each of them.

                One character whom I found to be extremely interesting was Private Blythe, the main character of the third installment of the series.  Blythe quickly succumbed to the condition known as “shell-shock” and was terrified each time his company went into combat.  At one point, the horrors of war became too much for Blythe and he lost his eyesight for no apparent reason.  While being helped at the make-shift hospital that the American army had set up, a medic made note of the fact that Blythe’s ailment was quite real, if only in his own head.

                Lieutenant Speirs takes the toll of war in the complete opposite way that Private Blythe took it.  Speirs has been quoted saying to Private Blythe that, “the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead.  And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to function as a soldier’s supposed to; without mercy, without compassion, without remorse.  All war depends upon it.”  This outlook on war led Speirs to become one of the most decorated soldiers in World War II and helped him to gain the rank of captain.

                Staff Sergeant Guarnere is a soldier who learns that his brother was killed in combat right before the D-Day invasion.  Shortly after landing on the beaches of Normandy, Guarnere goes on a killing spree in which he disobeys orders and kills every German troop whom he comes across.  Guarnere rushes into each of these encounters without thinking about his own safety or the safety of his comrades and thus almost gets himself and his friends killed.  This is an example of how rage and other strong emotions can overcome a soldiers’ training in the heat of battle.  Throughout the rest of his time in the European theater of WWII, Guarnere is generally level headed but has the occasional tendency to have violent outbursts in combat.