Godspeed, Major Dick Winters
Sunday, January 09, 2011
We knew this day was coming, but did it have to come so soon? We just published an appeal to build a statue of Major Winters in France.
Last week, Major Dick Winter of Band of Brothers fame, passed away. Apparently, his family kept it quiet and personal, and they request that donations are made, in lieu of cards and flowers, in Major Winters name to veterans hospital of your choice.
People who knew Winters during and after the war said he is exactly what he appears to be. He could lead without ever raising his voice or swearing. His friend Bob Hoffman, a Lebanon architect, said Winters’ eyes could “burn a hole right through you.”
The men who served under him and people who only met him later in life call him a hero, no matter what he says.
According to the book, one wounded member of Easy Company wrote Winters from a hospital bed in 1945, “I would follow you into hell.”
I knew of Winters as did every Army Cadet for decades before the miniseries appeared on HBO. We studied his fight after landing in Normandy as a classic Infantry Platoon assault. We all knew who he was. And we all wanted to be like him.
...He wanted people to understand that success in war depends not on heroics but on bonding, character, getting the job done and “hanging tough,” his lifelong motto. In combat, he wrote 50 years after the war, “your reward for a good job done is that you get the next tough mission.”...
No more tough missions, Major. You earned your rest.
AIRBORNE!