Band of Brothers premiered on HBO on Sept. 9, 2001.
Two days later, America changed forever.
The timing was so cruel that HBO stopped promoting the series after the terrorist attacks. Millions of Americans were glued to news coverage instead, trying to understand smoke, rubble, missing family members, firefighters climbing stairs, and a country suddenly at war.
Band of Brothers had been made to tell the story of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Nobody involved could've known Americans would watch the rest of the story while seeing courage, fear, grief, and brotherhood unfolding again in real life.
Twenty-five years later, the new documentary Band of Brothers: Legacy makes that connection impossible to ignore.
One recollection stopped me cold.
After 9/11, a firefighter being interviewed on television mentioned the series and explained that first responders understood themselves the same way.
They were a band of brothers, and the actors were stunned.
I understand why.
Easy Company wasn't memorable because the men were fearless. They were memorable because they were frightened, exhausted, wounded, frozen, and grieving. Yet they kept moving because someone beside them needed them.
The same bond existed in the stairwells of the World Trade Center. Firefighters, police officers, EMTs, and ordinary people went toward danger because other people were still inside.
The comparison doesn't make World War II and 9/11 the same event. It recognizes something human running through both stories. When everything else falls away, duty becomes simple: don't abandon the person beside you.
The series carried that lesson far beyond television. Chase Millsap, a Marine who later became a Green Beret and directed the new documentary, watched Band of Brothers at the Naval Academy, during training, and on deployments to Iraq, where DVDs moved from outpost to outpost.
From Task and Purpose:
The documentary didn’t start out as a project about the show’s anniversary. Instead, some of the actors wanted to honor the paratroopers by doing a static line jump out of a C-47 over Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Millsap was approached by an Army officer he knew to help film the effort. It started as a short project from New War Productions, a filmmaking company founded by him and other veterans. But once in Normandy, the project began to grow and change.
Army Gen. Christopher Donahue, the then-head of XVIII Airborne Corps, sat down to talk about how much the book “Band of Brothers” and the real Easy Company inspired him. Then, Damian Lewis, who played Maj. Dick Winters in the show, said he wanted to talk.
“Hearing him talk about the two days he spent with Dick Winters, and especially how much he still misses him, made me realize these actors hadn’t simply played these men and moved on,” Millsap said. “They had carried these relationships with them for 25 years, and that became a huge part of what ‘legacy’ meant to us.”
He has described the series as a reminder of leadership, service, and what people owe those beside them.
Something else in Legacy moved me just as much. The actors didn't treat Easy Company as characters they left behind when filming ended.
From Task and Purpose:
The show’s first episode aired just two days before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Retired Marine Capt. Dale Dye, who ran the boot camp for the actors and appeared in the series, said it connected with members of the military because it “premiered on HBO in the wake of a world-shattering event, at a time when America needed to reflect on things like resilience, patriotism and courage.”
Millsap said that when he interviewed the actors, he told them, “You guys got it right on screen, and that helped me and my friends get it right when it mattered for us. For that, I’ll always be grateful.”
Veterans recognize themselves in the show, he said. Even if they didn’t jump into Normandy or freeze in Bastogne, they recognize the personalities and relationships. Easy Company, he said, is a specific story that manages to represent millions.
“That connection was also deeply personal for the team that made this documentary, many of whom are veterans themselves,” Millsap said. “This was a team effort from beginning to end, and I’m incredibly proud of the people who came together to help carry this story forward.”
Many formed relationships with the men whose names they carried. Twenty-five years later, those relationships still matter to them.
Damian Lewis may be the best example.
Lewis has said Band of Brothers still means everything to him. Playing Dick Winters came with pressure because Winters wasn't fictional; he was a real man with a real family, real soldiers who loved him, and a reputation earned under conditions most of us can't imagine.
From People:
“Band of Brothers means everything to me," he shares. "It was an incredible show to be part of. Its legacy has gone on and on and on. People adore it. It stands up. I've seen it recently. It stands up as a piece of drama."
Lewis played Easy Company's commander and the series' main character, Major Richard D. Winters, in the show, which was based on Stephen E. Ambrose's bestselling non-fiction book of the same name about Easy Company, the 506th Regiment of the Army's 101st Airborne Division. The HBO miniseries, which premiered in 2001, is celebrating its 25th anniversary in September.
Similar to Band of Brothers, Lewis plays a real person in Pressure, which highlights the planning that went into D-Day and how they shifted the attack due to the weather forecasting of James Stagg, played by Andrew Scott. Lewis plays hard-headed Bernard “Monty” Montgomery in the film.
He tells PEOPLE that there is “pressure” when it comes to playing people who existed in history.
“I think, as with Pressure, there is a pressure when you are playing people who existed in real life and did extraordinary things," he says at the event on May 27. "You need to honor them the best way you can. That's really what preoccupied all of us during Band of Brothers and similarly with Pressure."
I can't speak for anyone else, but Damian Lewis will always hold a special place in my heart for what he gave us.
I never knew Dick Winters; most of us never did. Lewis couldn't give us the entire man, and he never pretended he could. He gave us a window into Winters' quiet leadership, discipline, decency, modesty, and devotion to his men.
The two men developed a friendship that lasted until Winters died. Lewis has spoken about how much he still misses him. The director of Legacy said hearing Lewis talk about Winters made him realize the actors had carried those relationships for a quarter century.
Maybe that helps explain why Band of Brothers still feels different.
It premiered two days before America saw firefighters disappear into burning towers because people above them needed help. It showed young soldiers surviving terrible things because the men beside them mattered more than comfort, fear, or sometimes life itself.
Twenty-five years later, Easy Company still reminds us that courage rarely begins with somebody trying to become a hero.
Usually, it begins with somebody looking at the person beside him, and deciding:
"I'm staying with you."
Maybe that's why Band of Brothers arrived when it did.
And maybe that's why, 25 years later, we're still watching.
