Dick Winters, World War II veteran, winner of the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism on D-Day, and the central character of HBO’s “Band of Brothers” miniseries, has died.
If you watched the miniseries (which I reviewed on my old blog a couple of summers ago), or read Stephen Ambrose’s book on the exploits of Easy Company that inspired the miniseries, or watched the various documentary tie-ins, then you know that Winters (played in the miniseries by Damian Lewis) was a calm, selfless, inspiring, exceedingly decent man, and the very model of what Tom Brokaw dubbed The Greatest Generation.
After the jump, three clips: one involving real members of Easy Company singing the praises of Winters (he’s the first man who speaks), one featuring Lewis at the end of the D-Day episode of “Band,” and one the “Band” recreation of the assault on the German guns at Brecourt Manor on D-Day that won Winters his biggest medal: