First Person: Memorial Day 2011

First Person: Memorial Day 2011: United States Marines: A ‘Band of Brothers’
May 25, 2011
By Commander (Chaplain) MANUEL DON A. BIADOG JR., CHC, USN

HONORING THE FALLEN Corporals Stephen Rothermelpilla (left)and Richard Castagna salute Lance Corporal Kevin Michael Cornelius and Lance Corporal Tyler Owen Griffins gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery. Photo by Dan DeGuzman, Jr.

ARLINGTON, Va. (BP)—Today’s Marines in combat are our modern-day Band of Brothers.

Band of Brothers was made famous by the 2001 Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks 10-part television miniseries based on a book about a U.S. Army elite paratrooper unit during World War II by historian and biographer Stephen E. Ambrose.

In the book and in the miniseries, the Band of Brothers were men of Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. They formed together a band of brothers, a brotherhood of their shared experiences from basic training in 1942 at Camp Toccoa, Ga., to D-Day in June of 1944 and their ultimate triumph at the end of World War II.

A modern day band of brothers, or brothers-in-arms, has shared a difficult, dangerous, traumatic, and stressful experience in battle, losing their fellow brothers-in-arms in combat. Those who know the true meaning of brotherhood, have lived it each and every day, and established a special bond that binds them together for the rest of their lives.