As a slight highjack:-
The soldiers in Saving Private Ryan (ie the ones that landed at D-Day and went looking for Private Ryan) were also from The 101st Airborne.
Is this a particularly prestigious or famous US regiment? Or is it just a coincidence?
I think it’s a little of both. Ep. 9 has a reference to another Airborne division but the 101[sup]st[/sup] is the best known. I recall some commercial set in college with a young lady and a guy discussing the Army. Guy asks co-ed if she was in the Army. She says, “Yes.”. Guy asks what division. She says, “101[sup]st[/sup].” Guy exclaims, “Airborne?”
I didn’t remember that, either. But earlier this week I read Ambrose’s “Citizen Soldiers”, which details the Allied invasion of Europe and draws upon Easy’s and other companies’ experiences during the war. In that book it is mentioned that Major Winters was among the first soldiers to discover a certain concentration camp. So yes, it did happen–maybe not in the exact way depicted in the series, but close enough.
Can’t wait for episode 10, although the book makes it kind of anticlimactic–the war’s basically over at this point.
I saw Ep. 10 last night. After Easy captures The Eagle’s Nest, much of it is about that fact that all these battle-hardened soldiers are milling around with hardly anything to do.
Spoilers follow!
A pair go after a suspected senior officer of the concentration camp that was in Ep. 9. Another pretty much cracks up, says he killed a “Kraut” and a “Limey” while trying to get fuel for his jeep. When some members of Easy Company arrive at the scene and wants to know what’s going on, one is shot in the head. At the end we find out what happens to everyone after the war and names are put with the faces of the real-life Easy members who had been introducing the episodes.
BTW: I checked with HBO’s schedule and no marathon is planned for this weekend. Just a repeat of this week late Saturday night.
So where was Tom Hanks?
Sure, he produced and directed it. And his son, Colin, was Lt Jones in the episode “The Patrol”. But in the cast list at http://us.imdb.com/Credits?0185906 , Tom is listed as playing the part of “British Officer” (although it doesn’t state which episode he appears in).
Guess I’ll just have to wait for the DVD set, he’s probably in a deleted scene. Sigh . . .
The real Winters told a story at the end of episode #10 that involved one of the guys from Easy. Seems his grandson asked him if he was a hero in the war. He replied that no he wasn’t but he had served in a company of heroes. These guys were so humble, choked me up.
THe German woman whose home Nixon enters and he sees carrying away dead Jews-what was the deal with the red clothing, like the red dress in Schinder’s List?
I was very confused by these scenes as well. Initially I got the impression that her officer husband (perhaps an SS officer?) was dead because of the black band on the picture frame. Later I got the impression from the stare Nixon gave the woman at the camp that he thought that her husband was the camp commandant. However, both scenes were very ambiguious, and probably purposefully so, because we were seeing things through the eyes of the alcoholic Nixon. Perhaps someone who has read the book can clarify? But even if she wasn’t the wife of the commandant the red clothing would be symbolic of the shared guilt the general German population had in the Holocaust.
I don’t recall that in the book.
My take on it wasn’t too deep. The black band meant he was dead and she blamed him for it and he wasn’t showing any guilt. He was just mad that they didn’t have his favorite booze.
I took the later scene to mean that she realized what the nazis were doing.