Stokes Young writes: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. This is what he looked like in 1945:

Courtesy of Sgt. Maj. Herman W. Clemens, Ret. / AP file

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.

Dick Winters dies; WWII hero commanded ‘Band of Brothers’

By T. Rees Shapiro
The full obituary for Maj. Richard “Dick” Winters can be viewed here.
Dick Winters, a decorated Army officer whose World War II service was recounted in the best-selling book and HBO mini-series “Band of Brothers,” died Jan. 2. News reports listed his age at 92.
Based on the 1992 book by historian Stephen E. Ambrose, the HBO mini-series came out in 2001 and was produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
The story follows the tragedies and triumphs of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion, E Company.
To Mr. Winters, these citizen-soldiers came to be known as the men of Easy Company — paratroopers who jumped into combat on June 6, 1944 above Normandy, France.
According to Ambrose’s account, Easy Company suffered 150 percent casualties throughout the war.
One of the soldiers who served in Easy Company, David Webster, once wrote that among his colleagues the Purple Heart “was not a decoration but a badge of office.”
Mr. Winters, who separated from the Army at the rank of major, and his men fought together through D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge and later occupied Adolf Hitler’s mountainside retreat, the Eagle’s Nest, near Berchtesgaden.
A charismatic officer who led by example, Mr. Winters received the Distinguished Service Cross, the country’s second highest decoration for valor, while conducting combat operations on D-Day.
Mr. Winters led a small group of men on a raid of German cannon emplacements near Utah beach on Normandy’s coastline.
While taking out the heavily fortified bunker, Mr. Winters and his men killed 15 German soldiers and took 12 more as prisoners, helping to save countless American lives from the withering cannon fire.
Later in the war, one of Mr. Winters’s soldiers, Floyd Talbert, wrote a letter to the officer from a hospital in Indiana expressing gratitude for his loyalty and leadership.
“You are loved and will never be forgotten by any soldier that ever served under you,” Talbert wrote to Mr. Winters in 1945. “I would follow you into hell.”
For Mr. Winters, his soldiers were his Band of Brothers and their experiences together in the war “created a bond between the men of E company that will last forever.”
If you have any memories about Mr. Winters please feel free to leave your comments below. A full obituary is on the way.
In the meantime, check out this clip from HBO’s “Band of Brothers,” where Mr. Winters describes a letter he received from Myron “Mike” Ranney.