For the military unit profiled in Band of Brothers see E Company, 506th Infantry Regiment (United States)
Easy Company was the phonetic designation of the fifth company in a battalion of any given Army regiment before the adoption of the NATO standard alphabet.
Easy Company has been famously used by a fictional cast of comic book characters, and by a real life company of the 101st Airborne whose story was told by historian Stephen Ambrose in his book Band of Brothers, later made into a television miniseries based on the book.
Regiments in the US military traditionally assign their companies alphabetical desigations (e.g. the fifth company is Company E). During World War II, this would have been pronounced Easy Company according to the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet. This differs from modern conventions, which use the NATO Phonetic Alphabet. Today, E Company would be Echo Company.
Easy Company also made an appearance in the film Saving Private Ryan, it was the company Private Ryan was in.
