"I don't think there is such a thing as a good war," says Sam Hynes, a fighter pilot. "There are sometimes necessary wars. And I think one might say 'just' wars. I never questioned the necessity of that war."
Such is an entry point into The War, Ken Burns’ documentary about World War II. Up close, you see how necessary and just this war was. You see how horrific it was. Its massiveness.
You pause at the great honor and courage that drove so many people to come together at an unbelievably pivotal point in history. The outcome was anything but foregone, which is what makes the story so jarring and real. It cuts deep.
You know the axiom about those who forget history are destined to repeat it. See The War. You need understand this part of our history. I know that I do. Here is an excerpt from an excellent review of the documentary:
"The War" invigorates history - in an honest fashion. Burns succeeds precisely in the areas that looked most daunting before he started. He tells the story from the ground up, from the people who fought the war and those who waited for them at home. "The War" is less about generals and tactics and the wonky talking heads of history lessons than it is about the experiences of veterans who can say, plainly, this is what I saw, felt, experienced and took with me. This is what happened to me and the people I knew on the battlefield. Here's why I went and how I'm different for going.
One of the brilliant aspects of "The War" is how every time people open their mouths on camera, it's as if Burns coaxed a secret or a memory from them that they wouldn't have offered up anywhere else - maybe not to their own families. This isn't a regurgitation of facts or memories or battle plans, as on the History Channel. It's people whose entire life's essence was the war, though they would never have chosen it to be. And in "The War," they open up about it in ways that will have tears flowing across the country.
One the one hand, there are some parallels to what is going on in our current world. On the other, the present is something completely different. We are too far removed from the reality of what it means to be at war. See The War.
In front of me is the interviewwhich Burns gave to the US New and World Report.
"War is the great lie of civilization; it is the collective forgetting". Earlier he says that the men and women who fought in World War II stopped telling stories that are "bromides".
I am 71. I have heard plenty of stories from World War II including people who were in Dachau and Auschwitz. None have been "bromides.
Mr Burns's problem is that he has clung to the Baby Boomer delusions that all wars can be negotiated. He sounds like he has never really grasped the reality of evil like so many of that generation. To them "Evil" is equated with bigotry or because the United States wasn't nice enough to someone.
Having heard this adolescent palaver for 40 years now, I truly wish that Mr Burns and the people who hold his views would grow up.
In our confrontation with the Islamic Terrorists we are in for the same thing. And, no, Ken it isn't our fault.
Posted by: Gus Owens | October 04, 2007 at 11:09 AM
Hmm, I am guessing that you did not actually watch the program that you are commenting on. I did. All 15 or so hours of it, and there was no soft-pedaling at all the necessary-ness of the war, the true evil that was behind the nazis, the unprovoked aggression of the japanese and the horrific cost of the war in terms of lost lives, etc. Nor was their one iota of suggestion that the aggressors were somehow victims. Can't speak to what you are referring to but it is completely disconnected from the reality of this program.
Posted by: Mark Sigal | October 04, 2007 at 12:07 PM