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RIP - MAJ(R) Dick Winters


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Just saw this on MSN - very sad to see a true American Hero pass over to the other side.

Major Dick Winters passed away Jan. 2 in central Pennsylvania following a battle with Parkinson's Disease. If you've read Stephen Ambrose's book or watched the HBO miniseries, you'll likely already have mental pictures of Winters' acts of heroism during harsh fighting in Europe during the Second World War.

Easy Company's William Guarnere, 88, told the AP today: "When he said 'Let's go,' he was right in the front [...] He was never in the back. A leader personified."

Winters told his own story in 'Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters,' and begins his first chapter by describing the "quiet peace" he says every soldier wants to find:

I am still haunted by the names and faces of young men, young airborne troopers who never had the opportunity to return home after the war and begin their lives anew. Like most veterans who have shared the hardship of combat, I live with flashbacks--distant memories of an attack on a battery of German artillery on D-Day, an assault on Carentan, a bayonet attack on a dike in Holland, the cold of Bastogne[...] If you had a man who was killed, you looked at him and hoped that he had found peace in death. I'm not sure whether they were fortunate or unfortunate to get out of the war so early. So many men died so that others could live. No one understands why.

To find a quiet peace is the dream of every soldier. For some it takes longer than others. In my own experience I have discovered that it is far easier to find quiet than to find peace. True peace must come from within oneself. As my wartime buddies join their fallen comrades at an alarming rate, distant memories resurface. The hard times fade and the flashbacks go back to friendly times, to buddies with whom I shared a unique bond, to men who are my brothers in every sense of the word. I live with these men every day.

Rest in Peace Major Winters. :(

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Wow, I had not seen that. Thanks for posting.

RIP Major Winters.

One of my favorite quotes from Band of Brothers is the very end of the last episode in the interview with Winters. It went something like this:

Winters: "My Grandaughter asked me the other day, "Grandpa, were you a war hero?" and Grandpa replied, "no, but i served in a company filled with them".

Real class act.

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  • 2 weeks later...

RIP Major. You were part of the "greatest generation". Several of my Dad's brothers were in WWII. One dropped behind the lines D-Day, another was in the first wave that hit Omaha Beach. Dad was a fighter pilot in the Army Air Corp - P51 and P47.

I cannot hold a candle to any of them.

Edited by Joe D
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