Band of Brothers | Currahee

July 1942 - 5th June 1944

We homeschool two of our three daughters, and our oldest has taken a keen interest in war games. I don’t know if it’s just that she has an aggressive, world domination type personality, or that she just wants to do something with her old man. And I don’t care, it’s right up my street, so let the games begin!

We started out with RISK, but wanted more of a challenge, so my daughter decided on D-Day. Rather than let it just be a games night, I decided I would educate her on the back ground of D-Day and what happened afterwards, and me being me, decided that my Band of Brothers DVD, along with downloaded discussion guides would be the best way. So hopefully for the next 10 Monday nights, oldest daughter and I will be watching Band of Brothers, and I’ll be filling you in on the Tuesday!

Overview
The first episode, Currahee is where we get to meet Easy Company. We find out just what they are made of, through there intense training. We also get to meet Captain Herbert Sobel.

As with most everyone who meet the real Sobel, we end up hating his character. He’s mean a petty. He’s on a power trip and for some unknown reason isn’t enjoying life, so makes life un-enjoyable for everyone around him.

But as bad as he is, most of the men of Easy Company will tell you that with out the intense training that Sobel dished out, they wouldn’t have made it through the war.

Having said that, the men of Easy would rather be shot for treason than go into battle with Sobel, and it’s this along with Soble trying to get one over Lt Winters, leads to his being re-assigned and missing out on the D-Day drop.

On 6th June 1944, Easy Company and the rest of the 82nd Airborne and the 101st Airborne board their C-47s and head for Normandy joining the largest naval fleet in history.

Thoughts
When I first watched Band of Brothers I decided that episode one was necessary, but really one of the most boring episodes of the series. Now that I’ve watched the series a number of times, I’ve come to appreciate more, and it has become one of my favourites.

I think it’s because it gives you a chance to ‘bond’ with the men of Easy, you get to, to the small extent that TV allows, experience what they had to over come to become Airborne Infantry. With out this experience, you’d struggle to empathise with them for the rest of the journey.

Spiritual Connections
No matter how well trained they were, the men of Easy were sent off with the encouragement and prayers of General Eisenhower:
I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.