I recently watched for the second times the magnificent Band of Brothers mini-series (for what it’s worth one of the most remarkable pieces of TV drama I’ve ever seen) and decided to follow that up by reading the book of the same name.

This is the third of Stephen Ambrose’s World War Two books I’ve read (Pegasus Bridge and The Victors being the others) and this has a very similar feel to it. Ambrose relies on oral testimony to piece together the action and the constant dialogue with those that were there give the book real authenticity, personality and grittiness.

Band of Brothers tells the story of one company, Easy, of the 101st Airborne from their training to their first action on D-Day to their capture of the Eagle’s Nest in Austria. It really is a remarkable story and some of these men did remarkable things.

Yet Ambrose doesn’t simply recount war stories from old soldiers but pieces them together to form both a gripping narrative but also insight into the war from the perspective of the ordinary soldier and his commentary on many of the decisions prove that war is always a waste of human life. It chronicles the action as well as the boredom, the heroics and the cowardice, the just cause and the lust for blood, the discipline and the drunkenness. It’s well rounded and despite clearly seeing the men of Easy company as heroes doesn’t always hold back from calling failings for exactly what they were.

At the beginning of this year Dick Winters, one of the main characters in this book, died. His generation, the generation that fought this war have nearly passed away. With their passing go some truly extraordinary characters who thrown into an incredible situation showed remarkable strength, guts and determination. In so many ways I hope we never have to experience what these men went through, and in other ways it shaped them profoundly and what shapes us is far less profound.

Yet for some of them the war and the army broke them and of course many simply did not survive. We ask an awful lot when we ask our young men and now women, to not only die on our behalf but to kill.

Band of Brothers is a well written, pacey, gripping story but it’s the men of Easy company who, for all their faults, during the second world war at least, were genuine heroes.