We Stand Alone Together

I'm very glad they made this documentary about the training and battles of Easy Company, 101st Airborne Division, between 1942, when the division was formed and 1945, when the end of the war found the men at Berchtesgaden, Hitler's peace-time retreat.

There is some newsreel footage but no reenactments; no narration, just the odd printed title to keep us in the right place and time. Most of the footage is taken up with comments by the surviving members of Easy Company, now old but still carrying memories that seem as fresh to them as they do to the viewer. Some of the men choke up but no one breaks down on camera.

I'm glad the film was made because it was necessary to get some of these recollections into the archives right now. All the speakers are aged and won't be with us much longer. I'm glad too because despite their occasional bravado, the justifiable pride and the resultant solidarity, the men aren't foolish enough to talk about glory or defending the world from Naziism. Their commentary shows that for each of them their part in the war was a highly personal business. They were scared and saw their comrades die beside them. The film had to be made to remind us that war, even when it's won, is an evil creation.

Because the point of view is that of the paratroopers themselves, some of the more general details of their engagements are lost. They speak of jumping into the night over Normandy on D Day and having their equipment, including weapons, torn off by the shock of the chute's opening. They don't seem to realize that, though they themselves had been thoroughly trained, the pilots of the C-47s were not.

When the anti-aircraft fire became hot, the airplanes picked up speed and jinked all over the place trying to avoid it, a pointless maneuver. Most of the jumpers landed miles from their drop zones and some landed in Rommel's flooded fields and were drowned before they could disengage their harnesses. The British parachute harness was released with a single click, like a safety belt, while the American version took roughly thirty seconds to escape from. Of course, the only comments we hear come from those whose landings were successful. Almost half of the men were lost during the month spent in Normandy.

Three months of recuperation, training, and replacements, and the next jump was over Holland in Operation Market Garden. The daytime jump was perfect. The operation was a failure due to hasty planning, German resilience, and bad luck.

Next engagement, Bastogne, the village in the center of the Battle of the Bulge. The 101st had been sent to a nearby part of the line for rest after spending seventy days fighting in Holland. The relief didn't last. When the Germans launched their last offensive, the 101st were called in to hold Bastogne, and they did until relieved.

They came home to ordinary lives after undergoing unimaginable stress.

"We Stand Alone Together" serves as an epilogue of sorts for the nonpareil mini-series "Band of Brothers." While it is best appreciated having seen "BoB," this sublime piece of work also functions well as a stand-alone (no pun intended) documentary.

Watching "Together" captures the essence of being a young boy, listening at the knee of your grandfather as he relates war stories. If the doc consisted of nothing more than showing the men reminiscing, it would have been great. But overlaying the men's tales is remarkable archival footage of the events they describe, along with a few necessary slides that provide pertinent information. Add this to having watched the described events in "BoB," and one has a more vivid account of WWII than anything one's imagination might invent.

Seeing the former soldiers tell their stories provides a fuller appreciation for what they endured. As phenomenal as "BoB" is, hearing the words straight from the men makes the events more personal, because you know that they have survived both the war and life itself in the aftermath. Perhaps most enlightening of all was learning of the respect that the American soldiers had for the Germans. They understood that the Germans were humans too, just in drastically different circumstances.

The documentary further emphasizes a tagline from "BoB." These were ordinary men doing extraordinary things. Listening to them explain that they simply returned to 'normal' life following the war is almost stunning. The modern soldier is still human, but much more trained and honed, often a professional soldier, leading us to think of them as almost superhuman. Most World War II soldiers were common people, which makes their accomplishments all the more head-shaking.

The documentary is also superb technically. The pacing in particular stands out. Shunning the common modern choices of quick cuts or attention-grabbing music, the film proceeds deliberately with quiet undertones. Consistently using fades in and out of footage and interviews, director Mark Cowen allows time for the viewer to absorb the power of what is said and shown.

Bottom Line: Phenomenal stories of phenomenal people related in a exceptional way. 10 of 10.

This content added some welcome insight and information from people who actually lived the war. What I like less is that the content from the interview is picked and I think it would have been even more insightful to leave nothing out.

Very good documentary. Especially if you are a fan of the Band of brothers. We stand alone together is kind of a recap, an encore..

In 2012, I took a filmmaking class with Mark Cowen, who directed the Emmy nominated, "We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company".

During the class, he described to us what it was like interviewing the veterans of Easy Company. In order to get access to these men, he had to go through the "Biggest Brother", Major Richard "Dick" Winters. Mark said that, even after so many years, Major Winters still commanded the respect of his troops and that they would do what he asked. Major Winters got on the phone and made some calls that went something like this, "This is Winters. I'm sending a man over to interview you. I want you to tell him everything he wants to know" or words to that effect. Mark said that this is the only way he could have gotten access to them and for them to tell their stories for these interviews.

Mark faced a difficult problem before any of the interviews started. How could he make them "open up" to his questions and speak freely about these often painful experiences and memories? He couldn't just go in and say, "Can you tell me what you did during the war". Knowing that these men wouldn't want to talk about themselves he came up with an idea which worked very well. He started each interview by asking, "Who was your best friend during the war? What was he like?" That is how he got these brave men to speak freely and express themselves as openly as they did on camera.

Many of the men Mark interviewed had never told anyone about their combat experiences during the war, not even their families. While relating some of their stories, the brave veterans would sometimes break down and cry. Mark told us he often found himself crying along with them. During one of the interviews, an old veteran slowly came out and sat down. He started speaking about the war and his time with Easy Company. As the camera rolled and the interview progressed, Mark could hear this veteran's family come up from behind to watch and listen to their loved one relate stories of bravery, of death, of friendship and of pain, which they had never heard. When he finished the interview, Mark turned to find not only the veteran's family but also a lot of their neighbors standing there. Some were weeping quietly while others struggled to restrain from sobbing. Scenes like this became common during the interviews he did with these brave, old warriors.

I often think of what Mark Cowen told us that day about his interview for, "We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company". I wanted to get together with him again to hear more about these interviews but sadly, he passed away shortly thereafter, on September 10, 2012.