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Band of Brazilians, more like!’
    The soldier whom Tom was portraying, Private John Janovec first appears in Episode Nine, Why We Fight . There are so many intensely emotional moments in Band of Brothers , but this particular episode contains one of the most poignant scenes of the series. Easy Company by this time (1945) is in Germany during the last days of the war. The statement that forms the title of this episode is one ponderedamongst the soldiers who begin to ask themselves if the sacrifices they have made have been worth it. The question is answered for them when they discover a concentration camp that formed part of the Dachau complex and come face to face with the atrocities committed by the Nazis.
    Episode 10, Points , the final episode of the series, centres around Easy Company entering Berchtesgaden to take Hitler’s Bavarian mountaintop retreat, the Eagle’s Nest. By this time, the war was all but over and the men were left with time on their hands and were anxious to get home. Before his turn comes to return to the USA, Private Janovec is involved in a road accident, suffers a fractured skull and subsequently dies. His conversation with a fellow soldier, Webster, just before the accident is of how many ‘points’ he has accrued on his service record and how soon he might be able to go home. It was a significant scene to include in the drama and one which demonstrates another heartbreaking injustice of war: in this instance that, even when the men were no longer in combat, there were still casualties.
    The miniseries was first aired in the United States in September 2001, shortly before the attacks on the World Trade Center. Its debut in the UK followed in October. While audiences and critics, particularly in the UK, marvelled at the expense that had gone into making the show, most agreed that it was a remarkable achievement. Of course, there was the inevitable criticism from British audiences that the show was another example of Americans giving a biased depiction of events during World War II – but to offer this up as criticism is to rather miss the point of what was at the heart of the series. It succeeded in what it set out to do, which wasto offer a faithful and compelling portrayal of what this particular group of men experienced when they went to war. Those men who had fought with Easy Company and were still alive when the series premiered confirmed that the show was an authentic representation of what they had been through.
    With his first small-screen outing under his belt, Tom was hungry for more work. Luckily for him, the next job in his diary was a part in a Ridley Scott movie – the young actor really was on a roll. Once again, Tom would be playing an American soldier, but this time he would be recreating a more modern chapter of US military history.
     
    Although set almost 50 years and thousands of miles apart, there are common threads running through Band of Brothers and Black Hawk Down . The subject matter of both is drawn from actual historical events and uses the recollections of the people who participated in those events. They also share similar themes such as comradeship, loss, a sense of belonging and a desire to be the very best at what you do.
    Black Hawk Down tells the true story of a battle between US forces and Somali militia. In 1993, Somalia was a country torn apart by warring factions. Relief was not getting through to starving civilians, with much of it being hijacked by warlords. General Mohammed Ali Farrah Aidid was widely considered to be the worst of the warlords and challenged the presence of the UN and US troops in Somalia, even specifically targeting American troops. A previous attempt by US forces to capture Aidid in a safe house in Mogadishu had failed and, in October 1993, a task force was deployed to capture some of Aidid’s key men. The mission wentcatastrophically wrong and, during its course, two Black Hawk helicopters were brought down by Somali RPGs