Dick Winters, 'Band of Brothers' Inspiration, Dies. Major Richard "Dick" Winters, died January 2, 2011 in central Pennsylvania. He was 92. Winters' quiet leadership was chronicled in the book and television miniseries Band of Brothers. Winters wasn't sure he would live through the war. He told writer Stephen Ambrose that he knelt down and prayed after D-Day, "If somehow I manage to get home again, I promised God and myself that I would find a quiet piece of land someplace and spend the rest of my life in peace." Winters found that quiet piece of land. He bought a farm outside Hershey, Pennsylvania, where he spent the rest of his life.

“That night, I took time to thank God for seeing me through that day of days and prayed I would make it through D plus 1. And if, somehow, I managed to get home again, I promised God and myself that I would find a quiet piece of land someplace and spend the rest of my life in peace.”

— Richard D. Winters, Band of Brothers, Season 1: Day of Days

Portrait photo of Major Richard Davis Winters, taken probably at the end of the war.

Writing about leadership to American History magazine in 2004, Winters said, "If you can, find that peace within yourself, that peace and quiet and confidence that you can pass on to others, so that they know that you are honest and you are fair and will help them, no matter what, when the chips are down." (1)

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(1) From the New York Daily News, January 10, 2011. Click here. An expanded obituary about Dick Winters can be read here.