Found this on Wild Bill's site and thought it was worth a read. This is an article by Robert W Butler.

Actors Learn Pretend War Can Be Hell Too

Going to war can profoundly change a man.

But just pretending to go to war can change a man, too.

That, at least, has been the experience of the young actors who appear in Band of Brothers, the HBO World War II miniseries produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg that depicts the exploits of the men of Easy Company of the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.

"I don't know if it can ever get better than this," said actor Michael Cudlitz (who plays Sgt. "Bull" Randleman). "As an actor you hope you'll be allowed to do something that matters, something that will last. Truth is, I'll probably never do more important work as an actor."

Frank John Hughes, who plays Sgt. William Guarnere, said, "Tom Hanks told me, `Frank, your life will change in ways you cannot imagine.' That was an understatement."

If Band of Brothers is among the most realistic re-creations of war caught on film, it's because of the contributions of the men who were really there. The series is based on the recollections of the veterans themselves, as recorded by historian Stephen Ambrose in his 1992 book. But during the two-year production schedule the miniseries' writers, directors and actors were in regular contact with the former soldiers.

While filming in England, Hughes racked up a huge phone bill calling the veteran he portrays in the film -- Bill Guarnere of South Philadelphia.

"I mean three hours a day, seven days a week," Hughes said. "We talked about the business of soldiering, the responsibilities of a staff sergeant, right on through to the details of what an individual soldier does during combat."

"One of the really satisfying things about this project was that everyone -- from the producers down to the makeup people -- wanted to get it right," Cudlitz said. "It wasn't unusual for things to be changed right on the set because of something you'd found out the night before talking to your veteran. You'd go talk to the director and the producer, and tell them, `Bull says it didn't happen like that' -- and they'd change it."

All of this attention to detail wasn't lost on Guarnere, who lost a leg in Belgium. He recalled visiting the set near Hatfield, England, where a town was built on 12 acres and designed so that when filmed from different angles it represented 11 different European villages.

"They walked us through the set and at different places they'd stop and ask, `Where are we now?' And looking around, I immediately knew. It was Carentan, France, or Belgium or Holland. I could identify each place just by walking through. That's how believable everything was."

Band of Brothers sticks so closely to the facts, Guarnere said, that his character is repeatedly referred to by one of his Army nicknames: Gonorrhea.

"The dirty rats, they even put that in," Guarnere said, feigning outrage. "No, actually it's fine with me. It's the truth, anyway."

Mining the past

Guarnere is usually a tough, wisecracking sort of guy. Like many veterans, he returned home and revealed little about his wartime experiences. It was something these fighting men wanted to put behind them.

But when he finally saw Band of Brothers, including a sequence in which an explosion shears off his leg, it was almost too much for him.

"I cried," he said. "I cried a lot."

Guarnere and other veterans of the war now talk about their experiences after years of keeping quiet. "A lot of acquaintances didn't even know I was in the war," he said. "It seems like 99 percent of us never talked about it."

That's changed. Thanks to the work of historians like Ambrose and the film Saving Private Ryan, these vets are being celebrated and are sharing their experiences. In turn, they're being hailed as heroes.

When Guarnere and his Easy Company pal "Babe" Heffron visited the Brothers set, Hughes recalled, "It was like a couple of rock stars had dropped by. All production stopped. Everybody came out and circled them. We all wanted to touch these guys who had actually lived through this experience.

"It was such an honor to portray this guy. You can talk to other men of Easy Company who have hundreds of stories about Bill standing up under fire and saying, `C'mon, these Krauts can't shoot straight!' No wonder they called him `Wild Bill.'

"The most daunting task any actor will face is to portray a living hero. I've been handed something precious -- a living hero's legacy (will) be brought to millions of people through me."

Told of Hughes' praise, Guarnere chuckled.

"I'm not a hero," he said. "I'm just a survivor. It took us all to win that war."

Brothers, indeed

In a curious way, the experiences of the actors reflects that of the real-life veterans.

"We had to become a band of brothers," Hughes said of the cast.

"The boot camp experience we went through was amazing in forging that. You were suffering hypothermia, bleeding feet, hadn't eaten for two days. You've never been in that position with your friends or family, so it creates an incredible bond with your fellow actors."

Neal McDonough (who plays Buck Compton) said they've been told that being in Band of Brothers will boost their careers.

"But that's just gravy," McDonough said. "The great stuff is the lasting friendships that have developed over the last two years. Now, when one of us gets married, half the cast shows up...

"We were together for 16 hours a day for 12 months, basically living like soldiers. After the show was over and the war was done, it was good to go stateside and hang out with your friends. But after a couple of weeks of civilian life you'd wonder, `Where's so and so?'

"We're always getting together to sit around having a beer, talking about the war. That's what we call it. Not `the show' or `the film.' We call the experience `the war.' We even call each other by our characters' names. I'm not Neal any more. I'm Buck. I'll always be Buck to these guys."

It's more than an affectation, McDonough said. Being in Band of Brothers changed him and his fellow actors on a very deep level. It was, he said, "the best acting experience -- or maybe the best experience of any kind -- that we'll ever be a part of."

To reach Robert W. Butler, movie editor, call (816) 234-4760 or send e-mail to bbutler@kcstar.com

It is with regret that I report the death of Joe Beyrle of the 101st Airborne. Some of you may know the name, others may not, but it does have signifigance on this site because just the other day I printed two letters on Robert Morneweck's Page, one from Don Straith and one from Don Burgett. If you read both letters, you will see that it was Joe Beryle who was responsible for hooking both men up with Art Morneweck. Ah, life slips by us so very fast.

My condolences to Joe's family and friends. May you rest in peace. Currahee!

Here is an article from MSNBC:

MOSCOW - Among the countless tales of improbable survival and valor during World War II, Sgt. Joseph Beylre's story still seems beyond belief: Beyrle was the only WWII soldier to fight for both the Americans and the Soviets.

Sixty years ago this week, Beyrle, then a 20-year-old from Muskegon, Mich., parachuted into Normandy the night before D-Day.

On a covert operation to prepare for the land invasion the next day, Beyrle, one of the 101st Airborne Division's "Screaming Eagles" in the 506th Parachute Infantry, had already made two jumps behind German lines to deliver gold to the French Resistance.

But three days after putting his parachute down on a church in St. Come-du-Mont, Beyrle found himself face-to-face with a machine gun nest full of German paratroopers. He was captured, but not before managing to sabotage a power station and other Nazi equipment.

Beyrle was declared missing by the War Department. A short time later, his status was changed to killed in action, after his ID tags were found on a body in Normandy — probably appropriated by a Nazi spy. Back home in Muskegon, his parents held a memorial service for their son.

"I think I survived, because there is a man up there looking after me," Beyrle says today.

In the Nazi gulags

Beyrle was moved through seven prisoner camps, eventually ending up in Nazi-occupied Poland. The Gestapo recognized him as more than an average soldier. Beyrle's belligerence brought on more torture.

"[The Gestapo were] very sadistic," Beyrle said. "You've never lived until you've been interrogated by the Gestapo. They'd put us on a stool and knock us off when we fell asleep. They hung me up backwards and pulled my arms out of the sockets. I was semi-conscious most of the time."

When the Red Cross visited the camp later in the summer, Beyrle was able to get word home — and to the War Department — that he was alive. "Dear Mom and Pops," he wrote in a postcard. "I am fine and a POW in Germany."

But the young paratrooper wasn't prepared to wait out the war as a POW. Beyrle tried twice to escape. On one attempt, guards he bribed with cigarettes turned him in.

"He had plenty of courage, and sometimes I call it foolhardiness," said Thomas Taylor, who wrote a book about Beyrle's exploits. "The rest of his fellow prisoners ... told him 'Joe, don't keep trying to escape. For one thing, you're bringing a lot of hardship down on us, because when you escape, we get locked down, we go on half-rations. So, just for our sake, please don't try another escape.' But that's not Joe. He does what his convictions tell him to, and damn the consequences."

In January 1945, Beyrle's third escape succeeded, but two fellow prisoners were killed in the attempt.

"They cut the dogs loose and I ... went down the stream. The dogs stopped, I think, when they hit the two bodies. They quit barking anyway," Beyrle said.

'American comrade'

Heading east toward the sound of battle, Beyrle met his objective — allied Soviet troops fighting toward Berlin. He raised his arms above his head and emerged from a farmhouse to the surprise of a resting tank battalion.

"Americanski tovarish," he said, using the two words of Russian he knew: American comrade. "I said I want to go with them to Berlin to defeat Hitler."

Beyrle convinced a skeptical tank commander to give him a gun and let him fight on with the Soviets. About three weeks later, he was blown off a tank.

While recovering from his wounds in a Soviet field hospital, Beyrle got a visit from Marshal Georgi Zhukov. Impressed with Beyrle's story, the legendary Soviet commander gave the young American soldier with no documents or ID a laisser-passer to travel to Moscow — to turn himself in to the U.S. embassy.

In Moscow, Beyrle found the War Department's slow-churning bureaucracy still had him listed as dead. His "dog tags," taken from him during interrogation in Normandy, were found on a body during the war. The reply from Washington — treat Beyrle with suspicion, as a possible Nazi assassin.

"I said that can't be Joe Beyrle! I'm Joe Beyrle," Beyrle told an embassy official in March 1945. After fingerprints confirmed his identity, Beyrle was sent back to the United States. His homecoming in Muskegon was a month later.

Spry and 80

These days, Beyrle, spry and 80, is a hero for both Americans and Russians.

Biographer Taylor says Beyrle's "aura" wins over everyone around him. "He's impressive, and he bears himself with great dignity and poise."

Last month, at the 59th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory in Europe, Beyrle was feted at a gala concert for Russian veterans in Moscow. Mikhail Kalashnikov, the 79-year-old inventor, gave him an honorary assault rifle that bears Kalashnikov's name.

And on Red Square, where President Vladimir Putin addressed Russian troops, Beyrle was the lone American in a crowd of Russia's WWII heroes.

At a time when more than a thousand WWII veterans are dying every day, Beyrle, both his lapels laden with American, Soviet and Russian medals, says he has rarely paused to think about the end.

"I believe very thoroughly that there's somebody up there looking after you, and it wasn't my time to go. I'm going to live to be 90, and then I'm going to take it year by year."

Preston Mendenhall is NBC's correspondent based in Moscow.

You can click here to see more info on the MSNBC site. It includes a video, etc.

Joe Beyrle

Here's the link regarding this death:

Jumpin Joe

No" smilies" on this one. Why did I enlist. Honestly, I don't realy know. I could lie and say that I wanted to defend my country. That is what I told the psychyitrist at Shepard Field Texas, where I witnessed basic training. To this day I don't know how he kept a straight face. And to the question " Do you like girls", I don't know how I kept a straight face. I attended Many training schools in radio, electronis,and radar, and ended up on ships, operating radar on ships bringing back men , who had been through hell, to be released back into sosirty. to this day, I wonder If i would have measured up to them.

chucktoo

WW2 Medical Dis-charge

One week in the Army Air Corp 1943 Camp Miami Beach. The Air Corp. took over 300 Hotels. You go on sick call for head cold. Doctor Lieut. Says “you have a pimple on the butt, we can take it off here†BUT Dr. Captain says “That’s a Hemorrhoid, send it to the hospitalâ€. One-week latter, operation done, you’re sitting in mess hall (lobby of a hotel) and behind you are a couple of nurses. One nurse says, “that kid is getting a medical discharge, BUT he does not know it. Well I said to my-self I am a kid and did not leave my room all week waiting for my ticket home.You guessed it ,the Army screwed it up.again. They dis-charged a kid who had a real operation.. I just sat for a week with out even going to the bathroom and got constipated.. Did you ever take one of those Army blue pills., looked like a sub-marine and was on a torpedo run.They have to strap you to toilet seat, because when that little gem works everything is going to move. I spent the next three years wondering “What if,,What ifâ€.

Art

First :JEEP†made in 1940

American Bantam Car Company, Butler,Pa.

1940 Karl K. Probst.of Detroit was hired by Bantam and they were the only company

who said they could deliver a Prototype in 49 Day’s. Sept. 23,1940 Bantam drove a Prototype to Camp Holibard,Maryland only 30 minuties to spare. The Army tested the prototype and said it exceeded expectations. Then Ford and Willy’s watched, took notes and submitted their prototype.. Bantam only had about 1500 employes and could not produce the large number of Jeep’s the Army wanted. The order was given to Ford and Willy’s. In 1943 Willy’s was charged for false and mis-leading advertising that they created the Jeep.