The War

I have spent every evening for the past week and a half taking in the somber pageantry of Ken Burns’ “The War” on PBS. If you are not watching this, then you are really missing something. As a self-proclaimed history buff and huge dork, this documentary has been right up my alley. But this is not a collection of the same stories told in your history textbooks or John Wayne movies. This work shows WWII through the eyes of those who fought it. Not planned it, but fought it. Roosevelt, Churchill, Eisenhower, Patton, & McArthur are just footnotes. This documentary follows the privates and other low-ranking soldiers through the events of the war. I have read many books on this time period, yet the stories told by the veterans themselves has given me more insight into this crucial period in American history than any text or novel or movie ever could. As I sit listening to these aging people shed tears as they tell how the war affected them, their platoons, their families, and their lives, I too tear up thinking about how both of my grandfathers fought along side these men. The stories are so similar. I think about how fortunate I am to be here. As Burns shows some of the brutality of “The War”, I am reminded, again, that one of my grandfathers could have been a victim laid out in a trench or river. Granted, the whole nation was a victim of this event. However, when you think about how one-third of our standing army lost their lives in Europe or in the south Pacific, you begin to understand what these people that banded together to fight off advances on two fronts from worthy adversaries and then came home to help turn a depression-ridden nation into the world’s last great superpower really did for all of us today. You begin to understand that these people really are The Greatest Generation. We should honor them. 1,000 a day are leaving us. It makes me want to seek the testimony of any individual still living. Like these heroes and heroines, their stories are dying — 1,000 a day.