Nearly 2,000 fill a tribute to 'Band of Brothers' leader

HERSHEY, Pa. - An Oscar winner stopped by to pay his respects. So did a former governor.

They joined nearly 2,000 other admirers, friends, and former comrades of Maj. Richard "Dick" Winters who gathered over the weekend for a public memorial service to honor the man whose quiet leadership was chronicled in the book and television miniseries Band of Brothers.

Winters, who lived in Hershey, died Jan. 2 at 92.

As his widow, Ethel, looked on from the Hershey Theatre balcony Saturday, participants heard music, Bible verses, and remembrances that she and her husband had selected more than two years ago.

Col. Cole Kingseed, a family friend and the master of ceremonies, began by asking all veterans in the audience to rise. Nearly half the people in the 1,900-seat theater stood, including several surviving members of Easy Company, to thunderous applause.

Those paying tribute to Winters included officers in dress uniforms, young West Point cadets, and white-haired Korean and Vietnam War veterans with company emblems embroidered on baseball caps.

Former Gov. Tom Ridge, a Vietnam veteran, quietly slipped in and out of the service, the Patriot-News of Harrisburg reported. The crowd also included actor Tom Hanks, who coproduced the 2001 HBO miniseries based on Stephen Ambrose's 1992 book and who spoke after the service about Winters' steely stare.

"That look could pierce a tank," Hanks said. "He was a complicated, magnificent human being."

Winters became leader of Company E, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, on D-Day after the company commander died in the Normandy invasion. During that invasion, Winters led 13 of his men in destroying an enemy battery and obtained a detailed map of German defenses along Utah Beach.

Later, he led 20 men in a successful attack on 200 German soldiers. And near Bastogne in Belgium at the time of the Battle of the Bulge, he and his men held their place until the Third Army broke through enemy lines.

The memorial service honored not only Winters' World War II exploits but also his life back home afterward. He married Ethel, trained infantry and Army Ranger units at Fort Dix during the Korean War, and started a company selling livestock feed to farmers before his retirement.