Fierce Valor: The True Story of Ronald Speirs and His Band of Brothers

Fans of Stephen E. Ambrose’s Band of Brothers will be drawn to this complex portrait of the controversial Ronald Speirs, an iconic commander of Easy Company during World War II, whose ferocious courage in three foreign conflicts was matched by his devotion to duty and the bittersweet passions of wartime romance.

Fight Like You Mean to Win

His comrades called him ＂Killer.＂ Of the elite paratroopers who served in the venerated ＂Band of Brothers＂ during the Second World War, none were more enigmatic than Ronald Speirs. Rumored to have gunned down enemy prisoners and even one of his own disobedient sergeants, Speirs became a foxhole legend among his troops. But who was the real Lieutenant Speirs?

In Fierce Valor, historians Jared Frederick and Erik Dorr unveil the fuller story of Easy Company’s longest-serving commander. Tested by trials of extreme training, military rivalry, and lost love, Speirs’s international odyssey begins as an immigrant child in Prohibition-era Boston and continues through the bloody campaigns of France, Holland, and Germany. But 1945 did not mark an end to Speirs’s military adventures. Uncovered by sharp scholarship, his lesser-known exploits in Korea, the Cold War, and embattled Laos also come to light for the first time.

Packed with groundbreaking research, Fierce Valor unveils a compelling portrait of an officer defined by boldness on the battlefield and the inherent costs of war. His story serves as a telling reminder that few soldiers escape the power of their own pasts.

Jared Frederick has dedicated his life to preserving the past. The author of numerous books including Hang Tough and Dispatches of D-Day, he served as a commentator on the American Battlefield Trust’s Civil War in Four series and has appeared across PBS, C-SPAN, and other networks. Frederick currently serves as an Instructor of History at Penn State Altoona.

Erik Dorr is the owner of the Gettysburg Museum which houses the largest assortment of Easy Company artifacts in the world. The co-author of Hang Tough, Dorr has appeared on the History Channel, Syfy, Travel, and the Smithsonian Channel.