Band of Brothers 1x6 | Watch Along

M for Morphine, T for Tourniquet. We still did that when I was a combat medic in Iraq many years ago. We were long past doing it in blood or mud though. If they're hit badly enough to need morphine, they're almost certainly going to be in shock. If they're in shock, they're sweating. It's going to come off. So all the line medics in my unit carried sharpies. M for morphine, along with the dosage and the time. T for tourniquet along with the date and time.

Even the nurse was based on a real person

Gosh I could feel Doc's mental exhaustion. Brutal but one of my favorite episodes.

Smokey Gordon probably had one of the roughest post-war experiences I’ve come across. He survived that gunshot wound that went across his torso and eventually regained full use of his body. However, the injury caused severe nerve damage — to the point where any physical contact, even something as simple as a touch or a hug, brought him excruciating pain for the rest of his life. On this seventh rewatch, I just caught a funny inconsistency in the dialogue: Renée says early on that she’s from Bastogne, but later claims she came there for the same reasons as Augusta Chiwy. Lady, you were born and raised there! That said, Renée was a real woman who did help the Americans during the defense of Bastogne — and tragically, she did die on that Christmas Eve bombardment. And at the 1:03:00 mark, I just noticed Nixon chewing out Dike for not being around and for repeatedly being caught talking on the CP radio. I love this show for that reason, so many different little details.

The powder they sprinkle on the wounds is an antibiotic. In modern times there's a different powder sometimes used that is indeed a blood clotting agent. You can also just buy gauze thats pre-coated in it. QuikClot and Celox are the name brands. Maybe this is actually a good place to suggest that everyone should have that stuff in a first aid kit in their house and in their car. Throw in a couple tourniquets too. Blood loss is the most common cause of death from injuries that would be survivable with proper treatment.

Maple asked about movies concerning nurses in war. "So Proudly We Hail!" (1943) is about Red Cross nurses sent to the Philippines early in World War II. Very good film, with multiple Oscar nominations. Bring some tissues.

I feel like this episode dropping on memorial day was not a coincidence, it's one of the very best. I am a huge fan of Roe, he is a real ass dude.

Phew! This one is rough.

This is the battle that made the 101st legend. I was in the army in the ealry 1980s. That was forty years later, yet in the headquarters of my armored brigade at Ft. Knox was a poster of a member of the 101st at Bastogne, standing in a frozen foxhole in the snow, with the words underneath: "I'm the United States Army and this is as far as the sons of b*tches go."

After the initial release of the show,and before streaming HBO would only replay this series on Memorial Day weekend. It was really a special event.

its really nice to have this series on Memorial Day. To all our vets, thank you for your service. I'll be thinking of my own father today, who was a veteran of the Korean war. People often forget just how much those earlier generations sacrificed.