Sumith Prasad
HBO’s war series ‘Band of Brothers’ revolves around the Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which is a part of the United States Army’s 101st Airborne Division. The Soldiers of “Easy” fights the Second World War for the Allied forces by putting their lives on the line, even when harsh conditions threaten their lives. The series depicts the resilience and determination these soldiers display, especially while led by Lieutenant Richard Winters, who eventually becomes a major. Since the series entirely progresses through the lives of the soldiers, the viewers must be wondering whether there are real soldiers in the show. Well, let us provide the answer!
Real Soldiers’ Presence in Band of Brothers
The pivotal characters of ‘Band of Brothers’ are based on real soldiers who were a part of the Easy Company during the Second World War. The protagonist Richard Winters was a highly appreciated veteran, whose efforts played a pivotal part in the success of the Allied forces during the War. The rest of the main characters, who form the Easy Company in the show, are real-life figures who fought in the War as well. Many of those veterans feature in the show, specifically in the interviews at the start of the first nine episodes and the end of the tenth episode.
These veterans include Winters, Carwood Lipton, Donald Malarkey, William “Wild Bill” Guarnere, Edward “Babe” Heffron, Darrell “Shifty” Powers, John “Johnny” Martin, etc. Edward “Babe” Heffron alone feature in the dramatized part of the show. He plays a Dutch man in the fourth episode of the series, titled ‘Replacements,’ as the Easy Company arrives in the city of Eindhoven. He is seen sitting alongside an Easy Company member, who shares intimacy with a local woman. In addition to Heffron, Dale Dye, a renowned Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, plays Colonel Robert Sink in the series.
Several celebrated actors, ranging from Damian Lewis (Richard Winters) to David Schwimmer (Herbert Sobel), portray the aforementioned real-life soldiers in the series. The cast of the series had to participate in a boot camp led by Dale Dye to prepare themselves to portray their respective soldier characters in the series. The two weeks of boot camp were apparently nothing short of hell for the cast members of the show. “That first day of boot camp, I looked around me and went, ‘Oh, Jesus,'” Lewis said about the same. “So, you become a scum bag piece of s*** a**h*** who doesn’t know anything,” Michael Cudlitz, who plays Denver “Bull” Randleman, said about the camp, as per the same interview compilation.
When Dye joined the series as a consultant and actor, the cast members of the war drama were reportedly apprehensive about him. “Everybody’s a little apprehensive about meeting Captain Dale Dye. He’s basically carved out a franchise niche as a military advisor to the movies. He and his company have been involved in pretty much every major war movie that’s been made. And there’s a lot of stories floating around. And we knew all the guys in ‘[Saving] Private Ryan’ mutinied and wanted to quit halfway through, and so everybody seemed to have a different story and everybody seemed to have something different to expect,” Ron Livingston, who plays Lewis Nixon, said about Dye.
As a soldier who fought in the Vietnam War and the Lebanese Civil War, Dye knew how actors should play soldiers in the series. His contribution was pivotal in turning the cast members of the series into soldiers. “The idea was that when they began to portray something — when the director said, ‘You’re exhausted,’ when the director said, ‘You’re frightened’ — they would have something that they could reach back and touch, some sort of understanding of what exhaustion means to a soldier, what fear means to a soldier. I wanted them to know that sort of thing,” Dye said about his contribution to the series as a consultant.
Read More: What is the Meaning of Currahee in Band of Brothers?
