“White Christmas”
OK, Ken Burns, put the dagger in my heart.
The documentary is showing plenty of images of our soldiers/sailors
celebrating Christmas on the other side of the world.
IIRC, Larry King would occassionally play the Frank Sinatra version of
the song. Pure tear-jerker.
Nice portion on about the USMC Raiders...including the grafting of
different sectors of Americans into one fighting unit.
(from the story of Bill Lansford, of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles).
IIRC, I saw a WWII-era movie about the raiders.
When potential raiders were being interviewed, the reviewer asked
one Marine why he wanted to volunteer for Raider duty.
“To KILL JAPS, SIR!!!!!”
Probably true, but you probably couldn’t have that in a re-make today!
I was a young teenager during the early years of Vietnam, and didn’t pay a lot of attention to it at first. But I was in an all girls chorus in high school, and Christmas when I wasn in 9th grade, we went down to Keesler AF base in Biloxi MS and did a show for the airmen. We sang “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”, and it occurred to me, later, that some of those guys, who were due to ship out soon, probably never made it home. I can’t hear that song anymore, without tearing up.