War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome back to Key Battles of American History.

In this episode, Sean and I will continue our series of in-depth discussions of the epic

award-winning 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.

And today we're going to break down episode 8, the last patrol for you.

So, Sean, we're getting toward the end here.

Do you have anything you want to say before we start jumping into the plot?

Not really.

This episode was directed by Tony Toe, who is a veteran TV director and producer, and he was one of the co-producers of From the Earth to the Moon, as well as the layer of Pacific.

So, and it was written by Eric Bork, who was one of Tom Hanks' writing partners.

He wrote a lot of the episodes of From New York to the Moon and several of the episodes of Band of Brothers.

And then Stephen Ambrose gets a writer credit as well on this one.

I'm starting to feel the need to do from the Earth to the Moon.

Maybe we'll do a series on that one day.

It's not technically about a, well, it's not at all about a battle, at least not a physical

battle. It's the battles that get guys into space and to keep them alive. But that's true.

That is an idea we'll consider for the future. It is a classic. It's available on HBO Max right now.

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