'Band of Brothers' vet William Guarnere dies at 90

He was one colorful person, but more importantly a great American. The scene in the movie where Joe Toye and Bill get hit during the Battle of the Bulge showed his personality to a tee, as they were being carried away he said "I told ya Joe I'd be going home before you"! and In 2006 I went to Normandy and toured the WWII sites with Battlebus tours, they've disbanded but the guides are still leading their own tours. One of the tours I did with them was their Band of Brothers tour since I love that mini series, best in the history of television in my opinion. Anyway, our guide mentioned that on occasion they have/had the pleasure of one or a couple of the actual Easy Company members there in Normandy and sometimes with the tours. As you can imagine it's such a unique treat for the regular folk on the tour to meet them, and also it would be an easy guess that they get inundated with questions. One of the funnier things he told us was about Wild Bill Guarnere and when someone would ask where he landed on D Day. It just so happened that every time someone ask that his landing spot would be right next to the bar in the nearest town and he would gladly tell you about it while spending a little time in the bar! I'd give anything for a chance to have bought him a pint or three or four.

I'm impressed that even after getting his leg blown off, he kept working until regular retirement age. No living soley off disability pay for him. And this was before the modern prosthetics revolution. Here's hoping that the eternal bar beyond the pearly gates carries his favorite brew.

By coincidence, I was flipping through channels last night, and I landed upon a German-dubbed version of BoB on one of the Austrian channels. The dubbed voice for the Guarnere character (and all the other "tough guy" characters) used affected a certain accent that I couldn't place. Not standard German, not Swiss, not Austrio-Bavarian. I didn't have a native-German speaker around to identify it. And apparently, the German word for "Kraut" is... "Kraut".

Which reminds me... I enjoyed BoB, but as a native Philadelphian, I was a little annoyed that none of the characters identified as coming from Philadelphia spoke with a Philadelphia accent (in the interviews, the real Bill Guarnere speaks with a very distinct south Philly twang). They either used Brooklyn or (bizarrely) southern accents. The lead actor who played Major Winters, though, nailed the subtle particularities of Pennsylvania Dutch country inflection. I was surprised to find that he's English. He really did his homework for that role.

Loved that series - I've seen it six times. I also took the Batobus BoB tour and loved that too. Hope to make it back to Normandy some day.

RIP Wild Bill

There was I think a PBS show several years ago with Wild Bill and Babe, so sorry I did not tape it as it was wonderful. Our WWII vets are going so fast. The man who was on my fathers plane is 92 and still going strong. Most of them were so humble and we owe them all so much.

I'm sorry to hear of his passing. He certainly had an interesting life! I had a look at a photo of Wild Bill together with the actor that played him in the BoB miniseries. They did have somewhat similar features.