Richard Winters quotes from Band of Brothers

Winters

Nix!

Nixon

I'm all right! I'm all right... am I all right?

Winters

Yeah, yeah, you are. [smiles a bit]

Nixon

Yeah? Quit lookin' at me like that!

Winters

I don't like retreating.

Nixon

First time for everything.

Winters

How'd the other divisions fare up north?

Nixon

[Pauses] I think we're gonna have to find another way into Germany.

Winters

[trying to wake up Nixon] All right...[dumps a full pitcher on Nixon]

Nixon

[groans and slowly wakes, then notices what Winters has done] Oh... CHRIST! That's my own piss, for God sakes!

Nixon

I mean, we're the only unit that's keeping the Germans on the German side of the Rhine. Now, if we had taken Antwerp–and I'm not saying that would have been easy–we would be across the river, well-supplied, with the Krauts on their heels. Now I just got to get Ike on the phone. Are you listening to me?

Winters

Hanging on every word.

Nixon

I don't know why I'm still doing this.

Winters

Drinking?

Nixon

No, hiding it in your foot locker. I'm a captain, for Christ sake.

Winters

Why don't you just give it up?

Nixon

Drinking?

Winters

No, hiding it in my foot locker. You're a captain, for Pete's sake.

Nixon

Maybe you're right. Maybe this is the perfect place to stop drinking. Right here on the business end of the Allied advance... Cheers! [continues drinking out of his bottle of VAT 69]

Winters

What is that? A piece of paper? I don't want to see another piece of paper!

Nixon

You are going to Paris, my friend, City of Light.

Winters

Joe, drop your ammo.

Liebgott

What? What are you doing?

Winters

[pulls out the ammo from the weapon, displaying a single bullet] You have one round. [Turns to John Martin] Johnny, how many prisoners do we have?!

Martin

We got 11 right now, sir.

Winters

[Turns back to Liebgott] You drop a prisoner, the rest will jump you. I want all prisoners back at the company CP. Alive.

Make a hole! Hey, make a hole! I got ammo, grab what you can!

Nixon

Lieutenant, you're a godsend. What's the situation?

I heard you guys were coming in. There was an ammo dump so, here...[hands a crate of ammo to Toye] Is it just you guys in the 101st?

Toye

Looks like it. What hit you fellas?

Everything. The Krauts had Tigers, Panthers, SP's, Stukas, arty, and infantry. They just kept coming.

Winters

What's your name, Lieutenant?

George Rice, 10th Armored.

Winters

Good work, son.

Muck

[to Rice] Got any more mortar rounds, sir? We're real short.

I'll try to make another ammo run if I can, but don't count on anything.

Muck

Thank you, sir.

Panzer division is about to cut the road south. Looks like you guys are going to be surrounded.

Winters

We're paratroopers, Lieutenant. We're supposed to be surrounded.

Good luck.

Nixon

Thanks.

Winters

Harry. Fire's not a good idea.

Welsh

Just a couple of minutes. We're in a dell.

Winters

A dell? Like where fairies and gnomes live?

Nixon

I swear I thought I could smell a fire. I did smell a fire. Are you out of your mind? [starts warming his hands at the fire]

Winters

Well, we're in a dell.

Nixon

Huh?

Nixon

I think I got something that'll help with your leadership problem.

Winters

Dike's being transferred?

Nixon

No, I can't help you with that. But Division has decided to pluck one officer from each regiment that served in the heroic defense of Bastogne, send him back to the States on a 30-day furlough. Get him out banging the drum for the war bond drive, that kind of thing. [Shows paper to Winters] Turns out I've been plucked.

Winters

How in the world does your leaving help me?

Nixon

It doesn't, I'm not going. I've already seen the States, I grew up there, that's why I came to Europe. Just wish they told me there was a war on.

Winters

Got a visit from Colonel Sink this morning.

Nixon

And how is the good colonel?

Winters

Concerned. Still drinking nothing but the VAT 69, huh?

Nixon

Only the finest for Mrs. Nixon's baby boy.

Winters

That a problem up at regiment?

Nixon

What? This? Is that what he said? No, I just don't like it up there.

Winters

Good. You'll be happy to hear that Sink is transferring you back down to Battalion S-3.

Nixon

What do you think I should write to these parents, Dick?

Winters

Hear what I said, Nix? You've been demoted.

Nixon

Yeah, demoted. Got ya. 'Cause I don't know how to tell them their kids never made it out of the goddamn plane.

Winters

You tell them what you always tell them. Their sons died as heroes.

Nixon

You really still believe that?

Winters

Yeah. Yeah, I do. Don't you?

Winters

[about the concentration camp's prisoners] Can you ask him, uh, ask him what kind of camp this is? Um, what, ah, why are they here?

Liebgott

Was ist das hier?

Das, das, das, das hier, das... das ist ein arbeitslager für unerwunschte wirklich.

Liebgott

He says, it's a work camp for, Unerwunschte. I'm not sure what the word means, sir. Uh, unwanted, disliked maybe?

Nixon

[guessing] Criminals?

Liebgott

I don't think criminals, sir. Uh, verbrecher?

Verbrecher? Nein, nein.

Liebgott

No

Ärzte, musiker, beamter, bauern...

Liebgott

Doctors, musicians...

Schreiber, schneider, intellektuelle...

Liebgott

tailors, clerks, farmers, intellectuals. I mean, normal people.

Juden. Juden. Juden.

Liebgott

[softly] They're Jews.

Polen, Zigeuner...

Liebgott

Poles, Gypsies

Aber Ich glaub das schlimm, das Frauenlager ist bei der nexte bahnstation dort hin.

Liebgott

Wie bitte, was sagen sie?

Das das Frauenlager bei der nexte bahnstation. [The prisoner wanders away, weeping]

Winters

Liebgott?

Liebgott

...The women’s camp is at the next railroad stop.

I wonder what will happen to us – to people like you and me – when there are finally no more wars to occupy us?

Winters

Have all your men collect the weapons, deposit them at the church and the school, and at the airfield.

Very well. [Draws his sidearm, offers it to Winters butt-first] Please accept this as my personal surrender, Major. It is better than to lay it on the desk of a clerk.

Winters

[considers] You may keep your sidearm, Colonel.

Winters

Captain Sobel.

Sobel

Major Winters. [Tries to keep walking]

Winters

Captain Sobel... we salute the rank, not the man.