Bastogne (French pronunciation: [bas.tɔɲ], Dutch: Bastenaken, German: Bastenach, Luxembourgish: Baaschtnech) is a Walloon municipality of Belgium located in the province of Luxembourg in the Ardennes. The municipality of Bastogne includes the old communes of Longvilly, Noville, Villers-la-Bonne-Eau, and Wardin. The town is situated on a ridge in the Ardennes at an elevation of 510 metres (1,670 ft).
At the time of the Roman conquest the region of Bastogne was inhabited by the Treveri, a tribe of Gauls. A form of the name Bastogne was first mentioned only much later, in 634, when the local lord ceded these territories to the St Maximin's Abbey, near Trier. A century later, the Bastogne area went to the nearby Prüm Abbey. The town of Bastogne and its marketplace are again mentioned in an 887 document. By the 13th century, Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor and Count of Luxemburg, was minting coins in Bastogne. In 1332, John the Blind, his son, granted the city its charter and had it encircled by defensive walls, part of which, the current Porte de Trèves, still exists. In 1451, the lands of the county of Luxemburg were absorbed into the Duchy of Burgundy and as a result, Bastogne became part of the lands of the Spanish Crown when the Burgundian heir Charles became King of Spain in 1516.
HBO's Band of Brothers, a ten-part television World War II miniseries based on the book of the same title written by historian and biographer Stephen Ambrose, was executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks after their collaboration on the World War II film Saving Private Ryan (1998). The episodes first aired in 2001 on HBO and are still run frequently on various TV networks around the world.
The narrative centers on the experiences of E ("Easy") Company of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment assigned to the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. The series covers Easy's basic training at Toccoa, Georgia, the American airborne landings in Normandy, Operation Market Garden, the Battle of Bastogne and on to the end of the war.
The events portrayed are based on Ambrose's research and recorded interviews with Easy Company veterans. A large amount of literary license was taken with the episodes, and other reference books will highlight the differences between recorded history and the film version. All of the characters portrayed are based on actual members of Easy Company; some of them can be seen in prerecorded interviews as a prelude to each episode (their identities, however, are not revealed until the final episode, although throughout the series, the men refer to each other by nicknames or their last names). Spielberg and Hanks produced a sequel miniseries called The Pacific that premiered in March 2010.
Bastogne may refer to:
If I said what's on my mind
you'd turn and walk away
disappearing way back in your dreams
It's so hard to be unkind
So easy just to say
that everything is just the way it seems
You look up at me
And somewhere in your mind you see
a man I'll never be
If only I could find a way
I'd feel like I'm the man you believe I am
And it gets harder every day for me
to hide behind this dream you see
A man I'll never be
I can't get any stronger
and I can't climb any higher
You'll never know just how hard I've tried
Cry a little longer
and hold a little tighter
Emotions can't be satisfied
You look up at me
And somewhere in your mind you see
a man I'll never be
(instrumental)
If only I could find a way
I'd feel like I'm the man you believe I am
And it gets harder every day for me
to hide behind this dream you see
A man I'll never be
(instrumental)
Can't get any stronger
and I can't climb any higher
You'll never know just how hard I've tried
Cry a little longer
and hold a little tighter
Emotions can't be satisfied
Oh you look up at me
And somewhere in your mind you still see
a man I'll never be
If only I could find a way
I'd feel like I'm the man you believe I am
And it gets harder every day for me