I watched most of it – for the most part I found it interesting. I think Burns had a couple of general ideas he was trying to convey that he did a relatively good job of – not everyone will agree with them or like them, but he got them across. I did find the last segment somewhat strange – It really did not fit with the rest of the film for me. Maybe he was trying a little too hard at that point to paint the picture he wanted.

Overall it was worth watching, but not perfect. As a point of reference, I was in the military for over 8 years, which I think helped me relate to a couple of the segments differently than someone who has not spent time in the military.

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I was long out of the military before our current conflict started – but seeing things like this documentary and remembering what it was like for me during times that were far, far less demanding (the first Gulf war, Somalia, etc.) make me really think about my friends that are still serving.

Very different situation in Iraq right now, but for guys actually on the ground that does not make the prospect of dying any different.

SDR – that was the segment I was referring to. That makes sense – I felt like those two stories fit with the overall theme, but just seemed very out of place in the film.

I just missed an interview with Burns the other night – I guess I felt that the overall message was that no matter what the reason, or what the news reports, or the leaders of the war say or do, the actions of the war are made up of a whole bunch of people we will never hear about – and he did this with the intent of trying to tell the story from the perspective of some of those people.

I thought he did a good job of capturing the feelings of a couple of the guys – kids signing up for “adventure” and getting sent off to do things that under normal conditions are considered wrong and in many cases suffering through things that can and did kill some people. I thought both the story from the Bataan Death march and the battle of Guadalcanal were really interesting to hear how the two guys felt when they left then how they talked about the things that happened.

I did not think that Burns was trying to make any points for or against the war in Iraq, which was good – it allowed people to watch it from a purely “interest in the history” point of view completely outside of my opinion about Iraq. I would guess many here, like me, had grandfathers or other relatives in the war and it was interesting for me to watch and learn a couple of new things about something that had a major impact on my family (my father was born 2 weeks before Pearl Harbor and my grandfather was drafted to serve as a doctor). It was a film about war and that will be enough to draw enough comparison from both sides. Critics will grab the comment or story they want and make a point for or against the war Iraq regardless of what Burns intended, so he really did not do anything with the film that I thought was trying to draw any direct comparisons.

I was glued to the show last night on KPBS. This piece shows how much of the story is left out of the history books. And just imagine, since history is written by the winners, there is another entire half of the story left out of the history books (Japanese, German side).

Side anecdote:

Just now, I remembered how one time someone demonstrated to me how everything we learn of history is highly biased to one side or the other. He said, “You should be able answer this question without any problem.” “How many survivors were there at Custer’s Last Stand in 1876?” I said, “Well, duh!, everyone knows there were NO SURVIVORS, that’s why it was called a massacre.” Then he said, “Wrong answer! There were at least 1000 survivors. They were just all Cheyenne and Lakota Indians.” That was a powerful example showing how biased I was in my thinking.

SD Realtor: My dad was in the Marines during WWII and saw action on Okinawa in 1945. He never talked about his experiences there, but my mom said he had some truly bad nightmares for many years.

The point I would make is this: The US sustained approximately 400,000 dead during the war. The Soviet Union lost nearly 28 million. As bad as our casualties were during some of the battles, the fighting on the Eastern Front between Germany and the Russians, and the fighting in the Pacific between the Chinese and Japanese forces, dwarfs our losses by several orders of magnitude.

That generation of Americans was completely focused on victory, and at all costs. My dad was on a troopship headed to Japan for the final invasion when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. The US was prepared for nearly a million American casualties during the invasion of the Japanese home islands, but the atomic bombs changed all that. We (as a generation) definitely lack the fortitude that they had. With the exception of those brave young men and women that are in the military now, that is.