It’s no secret around these parts that I am patriotic, or that I love history, or that I have a particular interest in the WWII era. I’ve talked about all three. So, it will not surprise you in the least that I spent last evening watching Band of Brothers, not for the first, but second, time. And you know what? It will likely not be the last.

Why, you ask?

Well, it’s not because I enjoy seeing people be shot and blown up. It’s also not because I have a particular love of seeing them struggling to keep themselves together, both mentally and physically. And I’m definitely not entertained by two of them hoisting only a portion of a third between them, screaming “MEDIC!” while dragging what’s left of their friend to relative safety through a storm of enemy fire.

No.

It’s because I feel like, in some small way, it’s how I can do my part.

As I sit here in my warm house that I get to own, with two cars in the garage, and my own animals grazing on the land that is mine…as I sit here without fear of it being seized, or anyone telling me what I can or cannot believe…as I sit here free of persecution, or censure…watching Band of Brothers helps me remember why.

And we need those reminders.

We should be required to watch things like this. Things about periods in history we’d rather forget ever happened, and for precisely that reason.

We are doomed to repeat the things we don’t remember.

So, I watch. I feel a tiny modicum of their fear. I struggle to hold it together, as I watch them do the same, even decades later, when the ones who survived fight tears to even talk about it. And here, in my warm house of freedom, my heart swells with thanks…because this band of brothers?

They’re my brothers, too.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  ~ John 15:13 ESV

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. ~ 1 John 3:16 ESV

**Band of Brothers is currently available for streaming, free on Amazon Prime. Another highly recommended documentary is Ken Burn’s THE WAR, available in its entirety, on Netflix.