Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

On the hellish battlefields of World War II Europe, Major Dick Winters led his Easy Company—the now-legendary Band of Brothers—from the confusion and chaos of the D-Day invasion to the final capture of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest.

But Winters’s story didn’t end there. It was only the beginning.

He was a quiet, reluctant hero whose modesty and strength drew the admiration of not only his men, but millions worldwide. Now comes the story of Dick Winters in his last years as witnessed and experienced by his good friend, Cole C. Kingseed.

Kingseed shares the formative experiences that made Winters such an effective leader. He addresses Winters’s experiences and leadership during the war, his intense, unbreakable devotion to his men, his search for peace both without and within after the war, and how fame forced him to make adjustments to an international audience of well-wishers and admirers, even as he attempted to leave a lasting legacy before joining his fallen comrades. Following Winters’s death on January 2, 2011, the outpouring of grief and adulation for one of this nation’s preeminent leaders of character, courage, and competence shows just how much of an impact Dick Winters left on the world.

This is a story of leadership, fame, and friendship, and the journey of one man’s struggle to find the peace that he promised himself if he survived World War II.

Cole C. Kingseed is a thirty-year Army veteran who served in a variety of command and staff positions. He earned his MA in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College and his PhD in history from Ohio State. He taught at West Point, where he served as chief of military history for four years. Kingseed is the author of fifty-three articles on corporate and military leadership and such books as Eisenhower and the Suez Crisis of 1956 and Old Glory Stories: Combat Leadership in World War II. He is a founding partner of Battlefield Leadership, LLC and president of his own leadership consulting firm, The Brecourt Leadership Experience, Inc., whose clients include International Paper, Ernst & Young, USAA, and Bayer Corporation, among others.