FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT HEROES' HUMANITY MAKES HBO'S 'BAND OF BROTHERS' DESERVING OF THE GREATEST VENERATION.

Early on in ``Band of Brothers,'' the paratroopers of the squad known as Easy Company hit the ground in a panicked search for safety at any sound suggesting danger, from a distant blast to the nearby crack of rifle fire to the mere rustle of brush. Near its conclusion, they stand up, stoic and resigned, to almost anything, almost bemused by those who would duck for cover.

``Band of Brothers'' fairly thoroughly charts the evolution between those two responses. As much as any popular-culture event can, ``Band of Brothers,'' HBO's staggeringly ambitious 10-hour miniseries based on Stephen E. Ambrose's best seller on the globe-trotting exploits of an elite paratrooping squad known as Easy Company, gives those who did not fight in World War II a smidgen of an idea what combat was like - brutal, disorienting, arbitrary and traumatic.

World War II is doubtlessly the last bastion of unfettered heroism to which just about everyone alive can point. In the past decade, in which heroism has been in short supply (supplanted effortlessly by good old- fashioned avarice), the selfless heroics of the soldiers who rescued Europe and the world from tyranny have enjoyed an odd if welcome vogue, fueled by books by Ambrose, Tom Brokaw and others, and films by Steven Spielberg (who serves as executive producer for the miniseries, along with Tom Hanks, who starred in Spielberg's ``Saving Private Ryan'' and was largely responsible for shepherding this project).

``Band of Brothers'' may represent the apotheosis of this trend, an unprecedented collaboration of patriotism and art. At a cost of $125 million, steep by any measure but staggering by TV's, it is, for example, cheaper yet richer and infinitely more intelligent than the year's other World War II leviathan, ``Pearl Harbor.''

As we learn in the first two episodes premiering Sunday evening, paratrooping was a new form of combat in World War II, calling for seemingly suicidal missions frequently placing soldiers behind enemy lines. One Easy Company veteran, in the brief interviews that begin every episode (except the last, where the real-life soldiers are allowed the final word), recalls that few volunteered for such a foolhardy assignment - until it was mentioned that their pay was a little better than the average grunt's.

In Sunday's first episode (co-written by Hanks with Erik Jendresen and directed by ``Field of Dreams' '' Phil Alden Robinson), we accompany Easy Company through a grueling basic training, in which their resistance to taking orders is meticulously wrung from their beings and their discipline is honed to a fine edge. David Schwimmer (``Friends'') appears as Lt. Sobel, a brutal disciplinarian but an egregious tactician in the field: His fecklessness in the field results in Easy's first crisis - do these men follow him into battle, and certain disaster? Or will their rebellion inform their sense of mission? A new hero emerges, Dick Winters (Damian Lewis), who over the course of the series will rise in rank and estimation in his men's eyes.

The British-born Lewis not only masters his American accent throughout, he anchors the series with a gravity and an empathy that seem to serve as the spirit of the project: Think David Caruso's world-weary decency in the first season of ``NYPD Blue'' and you're not too far off the mark.

Sunday's second episode focuses on Easy's exploits on D-Day, and features some of the series' most wrenching combat sequences (and, oddly enough for a program about paratroopers, its only airborne scene, equally fearsome) - they're almost as powerful as ``Saving Private Ryan's'' D-Day opening.

Future episodes focus on Easy's treacherous winter holding its own in Bastogne, Belgium (the Battle of the Bulge), all the while outmanned, outgunned, undernourished and underclothed (history seemed to follow Easy Company), as well as numerous lesser but no less devastating battles.

Episode 9, ``Why We Fight,'' is perhaps the only lighthearted episode, until Easy shockingly discovers a concentration camp abandoned by the Nazis. They subsequently take Hitler's Eagles Nest as the war nears its conclusion, but even to the end, tragedy is just around the corner. Near the end, there's an exhausted sense of fatalism among the men - the youthful vigor has been drained from their eyes - but this disparate lot is also bickering and ruthlessly protective of one another, just like the tightest-knit family.

Given how many players ``Band of Brothers'' has on the field - out of respect to the soldiers depicted, there's little in the way of composite characters - it's frequently a challenge to discern who's who during the battle sequences. Nonetheless, the actors uniformly and expertly give their characters humanity - and movingly, at that - often in just brief bursts of narrative shorthand.

Battle footage is never so frenetic or sensational that the filmmakers cannot stop to consider the human toll - soldiers, usually more shaken than macho, regard their fallen enemies with a startled sense, realizing that mere caprice on fate's behalf prevented them from losing this particular roundelay. As Spiers (Matthew Settle), a recklessly heroic soldier, explains to his more tremulous charges, ``The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead and once you accept that, you'll be able to function as a soldier without compassion, without remorse. All war depends on it.''

It's a disquieting thought, but not an untrue one. ``Band of Brothers'' also excels in that it doesn't artificially juice its story with melodrama or hyperkinetic editing - the men's stories, even at their most mundane, are mature, provocative and quietly telling. Technically, the series is a marvel, as well. Praise should go to cinematographers Remi Adefarasin and Joel J. Ransom and production designer Anthony Pratt for giving the series a distinctive look, and composer Michael Kamen, who contributes a memorably stirring score (his main theme has been resounding in my head for days).

The series takes its audience on the most wrenching journey the 20th century had to offer, making the interviews with the veterans, as they share, often emotionally, their vivid memories, virtually essential. They assure viewers that these men saw the worst mankind had to offer, and were still capable of retaining - and asserting - their humanity.

``BAND OF BROTHERS''

What: Miniseries from executive producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg based on Stephen E. Ambrose's best seller about an elite squadron of paratroopers that fought in some of World War II's most famous battles.

The stars: Damian Lewis, Ron Livingston, Donnie Wahlberg, Kirk Acevedo, Eion Bailey, Matthew Settle, Dale Dye, Rick Gomez, Scott Grimes, Frank John Hughes, Peter McCabe, Ross McCall, Marc Warren.

Where: HBO.

When: Episodes 1 and 2 air at 9 p.m. Sunday, repeating at 9 p.m. Wednesday. Subsequent episodes will air at 9 p.m. Sundays, repeating at 10 p.m. Wednesdays. The miniseries will also be repeated on HBO 2. Check www.hbo.com for listing.

Our rating: Four stars

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Michael Cudlitz leads a charge in ``Band of Brothers,'' HBO's 10-part miniseries based on Stephen E. Ambrose's book about Easy Company, a U.S. Army paratroop unit that fought in some of World War II's most famous battles.

(2) David Schwimmer plays a careless lieutenant in the first episode.