Larry Alexander - Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, the Man Who Led the Band of Brothers

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This book is dedicated to the memory of Israel and Dorothy Gockley and Adam and Cora Burkholder, and to all other Americans who either served their country during a time of war or awaited the return of a loved one.

AUTHORS NOTE

An author probably should not admit this, but the idea for this book was not my own. It resulted from a suggestion by my boss, Charles Raymond Shaw, which might be only fair since he is the one who had me get in touch with Dick Winters in the first place.

It all began in September of 2001 when Shaw, editor of the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where I work as a reporter and weekly humor columnist, approached my desk. The miniseries Band of Brothers had been airing for several weeks on HBO, and Shaw, who knew I had a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and was very knowledgeable on World War II, had an assignment for me. He asked if I had been watching the miniseries. I told him I had, a fact which I am sure came as no revelation.

You know, according to the book, Dick Winters lives in Hershey, Shaw told me. Why dont you try to look him up? Itd make a good story.

Good, hell. Itd be a great story, so I hurried over to a shelf in the newsroom where we kept phone books. Youd think a newspaper would keep current phone books, but that is not the case. Our collection was so old that one book still had a listing for Thomas Edison. So it came as no surprise when I picked up the Hershey phone book, dialed the number and found it was not the Winters residence as the book indicated. The veteran had wisely changed his number. I dont know who the poor soul is who had it reassigned to him, but Im sure he has since gone mad.

I wasnt sure where to go next when fate intervened. Stopping at a bookstore next day I stumbled across a special Band of Brothers edition of World War II magazine and, lo and behold, inside was contact information for the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment Association. I called the number in Michigan and, after identifying myself, was told by the gentleman on the other end of the line that he had no information on Winters to give me. However, he did have the phone number of one of Winters men, William Wild Bill Guarnere, who was still living in Philadelphia. I dialed the number.

Guarnere was the same type of guy depicted in the film; gruff, with a South Philly twang and salty as hell. I loved it. Guarnere told me he could not hand out Winters phone number, but did give me his post office box address. Then he added some advice. One more thing, Guarnere told me. He wont talk to you if you havent read the book. So if you havent read the goddamn thing, dont bother.

No problem there. I had read the book once and listened to the audio version at least twice. I wrote Winters that same evening but didnt mail the letter until next day, so when I addressed the envelope, I used my home address in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, for my return address, rather than my Lancaster work address.

Three days later my work phone rang. The conversation went something like this.

Newsroom, Larry Alexander.

Hello, a quiet voice said on the other end of the line. This is Dick Winters from Hershey.

Excitement coursed through me. Oh, my, I stammered. Thank you for calling. This is an honor.

What he said next puzzled me. Where in Ephrata do you live?

I told him.

Then he added, I lived in Ephrata, too. On East Fulton Street.

My God, I replied. I grew up on East Fulton Street. Where did you live?

Next to the stockyard, he said.

That big, wood frame house? I know it, I said, thoroughly amazed. I lived on the other end of the block, at the corner of Fulton and Lake. I saw your house every day of my life.

I lived there in the twenties, he said. We later moved to Lancaster. (Somehow I had missed the reference to Lancaster near the end of episode two of the HBO series, Day of Days.) Did you know Lottie Gardner?

Sure I knew Lottie, I told him. That was our favorite place to go trick-or-treating when I was a kid. She gave dimes instead of candy. A dime bought two plain Hershey bars back then.

Winters chuckled. Its a small world.

Our first interview and meeting was a few days later. I took along my colleague, photographer Dan Marschka, who was almost as excited as I was to meet Winters. We met in the second-floor office at his home, and I sat in the same creaky leather chair once used by author Stephen E. Ambrose and actor Damian Lewis (although not at the same time). Our interview lasted about an hour, but Dan and I spent another two hours there, enthralled by the man, his stories, indeed, his very presence.

The article ran next day and was entitled Biggest Brother, a phrase I used in my first paragraph, where I wrote, If the men of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne are a Band of Brothers, then Dick Winters is the Biggest Brother. The editor loved it. Unfortunately, he pulled it for the title and changed my reference to Winters is the Big Brother. Editors! Ya gotta loveem. (Later, when I told people about this book and its title, some thought I swiped it from Steven Spielberg, who used the same term to describe Winters at the Emmys in September 2002, when actually I had used it a year earlier.) Winters called me that day.

I have been interviewed by a lot of newspapers and magazines, he said. But that was the best article about me I have ever seen. You did a helluva job. And the picture was terrific.

Although that made me happy, what thrilled me even more was when he reproduced copies of the article, including photos, and sent them along in replies to any fan who requested an autograph. Better yet, I quickly became Winters favorite reporter and Dan became his favorite photographer.

That meeting sparked a long and happy friendship with Winters. Over the next few months, we spoke often and I visited him when I had the chance. In April 2002, HBO rereleased the series and I again interviewed Winters, on how it feels to be an eighty-four-year-old media celebrity. For this article I also interviewed Forrest Guth and Bill Guarnere. Dan again went along as my photographer and his picture of Winters sifting through a stack of mail, with a whole box of other letters sitting beside him, became one of Winters favorites. That photo appears in this book.

This book came about in the spring of 2003. I had been in Ray Shaws office, talking about Winters hectic public appearance schedule.

You and he have become pretty close, Shaw said. Have you thought about writing his biography? Im sure theres a market out there for it.

Actually, I hadnt thought about it, and even if I had, it is unlikely I would have suggested it to Winters as I felt it would have been imposing on our friendship. Also, I was very busy myself and a book is a major undertaking. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that someone was going to write a book about him someday, so why not me, someone who knew him and had a deep and abiding respect for the man and his deeds. So the next time I was at Dicks home, I broached the idea, adding that if he did not like it, all he had to do was say no and thatd be that.

Let me think about it, he said.

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