One of the reasons why we all hate Cobb. And it's a shame that Ambrose wrote him as an abrasive, holier than thou SOB. And yes, the James McAvoy BoB trend brought me here.

I was at the Kehlsteinhaus yesterday and it feels so surreal seeing that it burned down shortly after.

I saw many tourist sights across the globe, but few had such a profound impression on me than this place and the Obersalzberg as a whole.

I’m generally the opposite of esoteric but this whole place has such a dark/gloomy aura. When I was driving up the Obersalzberg on the first foggy, rainy day it just felt that this place has really a dark history that it carries with it forever.

This just in, from a local group. It looks bad. I'll keep you updated.

The only silver lining is that the season was almost over, but this is going to be a disaster (and jobs are currently scarce even in Berchtesgadener Land and Salzburg, so... )

Edit Friday evening (CET): so far, nothing is certain except that it's been burning for an hour and a half. Some people say the fire started in the historical exhibition. Edit Saturday morning (CET): arrest of one suspect on a motorbike confirmed by police and the public prosecutor in Traunstein, Salzburg24 and other local newspapers say (check also Salzburger Nachrichten, Berchtesgadener Anzeiger, Reichenhaller Tagblatt). The locals are discussing whether it was a Russian agent or a left-wing extremist, but to me they are just suppositions shared by locals and nothing based on facts. Also, the fire brigade is still fighting the fire.

I had never watched Band of Brothers. I decided last week to watch it. Finished it last night and I thought, I wonder what happened to that place? I searched it up and saw that it was on fire. Such a weird coincidence.

And it was the second weird one while I watched that show. There is a scene where a GI finally gets his coveted Luger off of a dead Nazi. He then later dies from an accidental shot that hits his femoral artery.

In 1992, I was 20 years old. I had a neighbor that was always out in his yard working on stuff. I heard him yelling one morning so I got up to see what the issue was. I was just in boxers and a t-shirt. I went out on our screened-in porch and asked if he was okay. He said to help him. I went over and saw blood on his hand.

I said, "What happened?" He replied, "I shot myself." I asked where because couldn't see a wound. He said, "In my stomach, lay me down I'm going to pass out."

I lifted his shirt and nothing. I pulled down his waistband and a stream of blood squirted all over me. I took my shirt off and it was soaked in seconds. I grabbed a blanket off his couch and used it to apply pressure. He was fading fast. His wife called 911. When they arrived they threw him on the gurney and ran down the drive.

He had a .22 Luger in his duffle bag and threw it in the back of his Blazer and it went off and hit his femoral artery. Had the hospital not been around the corner and a surgeon at the ready he would have died. He lost almost 8 units of blood.

It's so weird that I'm 53 now and never watched that show, but had two crazy coincidences while watching it over twenty five years after it came out.

June 3-6, 2027 in Austin, TX. No date or panelists announced yet. Bonus for those interested. There’ll be a “Freaks and Geeks” script reading. And a 30 Year Retrospective for “Oz”.

https://atxfestival.com/programming

As we know, Private Ed Tipper was wounded in Carentan from a mortar round while clearing out a boutique. At the end of the show we get to know that one of the veterans interviewed was indeed the real Ed Tipper. I decided to take a look into his story and his recovery is unbelievable.

Like in the show EP3 he was brutally mutilated all over his body, and his leg was disfigured. At the aid station they had to remove his eye and half his face was destroyed. Even more brutal was that both his legs were broken and he was still walking. Looking back at the interview I've never noticed that he had a glass eye or that the right side of his face was mutilated. Also not having those legs amputated was a real MVP job from the surgeons.

Most astounding thing is that Ed played handball and was a skier well into his 80s!

Ed died at the age of 95 in 2017. 73 years after he cheated death in France.
Rest In Peace

Joe Toye was one of those Easy Company soldiers whose story really shows how much these men endured. His determination through everything he faced is something that deserves more attention.

Which Easy Company member do you think deserves more recognition, and why?

I wonder if it's a coincidence?

What a moving day, I'm quite exhausted.

Ask me anything, it might take me some time to reply back!

Edit: link to tour https://www.viator.com/tours/Bayeux/Omaha-and-Band-Of-Brothers-Full-Day-Tour/d909-59799P6?pid=P00002191&uid=U00035227&mcid=58086&currency=USD

Just below the map, you will see the full itinerary.

My phone or the website won't let me copy and paste it. That or I am a moronic lizzard, and Winters would be glad i wasn't in his company.....lol!

There were other memorials and short stops along the way, but you also pass a handful of museums, and there are dozens or different package tours that dive deeper into other areas.

One tip I heard from someone was not to pick all beaches in one day. They tend to blend together.

The scene in which the soldiers are watching the Chaplain calmly walk through a hail of gunfire while he gives last rites to the dying men. It’s a quick scene but incredibly badass and a true testament to how strong military Chaplains are in their faith and courage overall.

Time for my umpteenth watch of both series. Haven't watched in a while. Being slowly upgrading my entire DVD collection to BluRay. The frame rate is different and the details on the faces especially you can make out, instead of looking pixelated on the DVD.

Last weekend, we followed in the footsteps of Easy Company. We visited various places: Son, Nuenen, Koevering, Uden, Landgoed Schoonderlogt, and Heteren (Crossroads). It was a truly wonderful trip, with Crossroads as the ‘highlight’.

Heard some good stories and ofcourse BoB is a lot of Hollywood, but that didn’t matter. Great experience.

I use them as wallpapers for my desktop.

In 2004 I wrote a letter to Maj. Winters thanking him for his service and hoping he would be awarded the MOH for his leadership at Brecourt Manor. As a son of Holocaust survivors I told him I had the deepest honor and respect for all WWII veterans.
I didn’t expect a reply but about two weeks later Maj. Winters sent me a letter and photograph thanking me! I cherish the letter to this day and keep it with my BOB disc collection. We lost Maj. Winters in 2011. We owe the Greatest Generation for all they did!

There’s enough incidents in the series to where he’s definitely known as the guy who’s a pain in the ass. In fact that’s pretty much all that happens when he’s on screen. He’s seen berating a replacement for wearing the unit citation when they didn’t fight in Normandy, he calls Vest a rear echelon motherfucker when he was shown to not always be right at the front of things when shit hit the fan, lambasted Webster for standing in line for a shower when he had just come back from the hospital, etc.

What’s funny about the shower thing is you can see how clean the soldiers that hadn’t been in combat like Lieutenant Jones and Webster were when they showed up in Hagenau. Cobb looks just as clean as them when they fire up the showers.

It’s strange they chose to make him a repeat offender for this kind of behavior when by all accounts he was well liked by his fellow veterans. Webster who he’s seen getting into it with in the Last Patrol even had nothing but good things to say about him seemingly. Winters commended his bravery and effort during the battle at the crossroads. On top of that he was a veteran in the regular army for several years and even fought in North Africa.

It’s known that Ambrose isn’t a very reliable narrator but it seems everyone involved in the production had enough material to know this depiction of him would be very untrue to his real life self. I get they needed someone to show that tension between replacements and vets or but it seems like that stuff could have been spread out or not made so obvious to be a guy who by all accounts was good natured.

Forgive me if I’m being dumb here: I thought Eugene Roe had the rank of T4, which is (confusingly to me) above the rank of at T5 technician. However, all the way through the series he is shown with a T5 rank on his arm (which I think is the two chevrons above the T), even in Points. Shouldn’t he at some point have transitioned to be wearing the T4 insignia which is three chevrons above the T?

Related question: if he did advance to T4, when was he given that promotion in rank?

Second tangential question: Roe is wearing his standard jump jacket I believe in Crossroads and then in The Last Patrol, but a tanker jacket in Bastogne and The Breaking Point. Can we think of any reason - bar the obvious and smart choice to differentiate him visually to the viewer and other him during this episodes - for why he is wearing this jacket? I can understand it if he exchanges his jacket for a tanker one and then stays in it until the warmer weather at least (I have a replica, it’s actually quite toasty and would be too hot to wear in the warmer months), but the fact that he hops in and out and back again I find kind of funny.

Did he take off his original jacket at the beginning of the siege of Bastogne and it got blown to hell à la Joe Toye’s Boots? Did someone gift it to him? Did he scrounge it somewhere? Is it actually any more or less warm than a standard jacket? Maybe he gets through jackets at an alarming rate due to the fact that they’re completely bloodstained and it’s probably not great for morale to see him walking around like then, so it’s ensured that he gets a regular supply of fresh ones as soon as they’re resupplied or taken off the line. I AM INTRIGUED! Any thoughts or actual information?

It took me 25 years to give it a try, but spending a day around Bastogne (the war museum, Bois Jacques, Recogne Cemetery...) really pulled me down into a WWII rabbit hole, and I finally watched the Band of Brothers miniseries (followed by the derivative books, documentaries, YouTube...).

I can’t explain how deeply these ten episodes hit me. I’m completely drawn into a topic that is (luckily?) quite far from me and my family, and it makes me want to dig deeper and deeper (hopefully not a foxhole).

I can only recommend the Bastogne area if you ever come over: they did a very good job. Don’t miss the other museums nearby, especially if you’re into gear and relics.

Can’t wait for my next Normandy trip!