Posted on 09/23/2007 9:14:44 AM PDT by Racehorse
"They don't deserve this," said Garcia, a retired nurse. "They were dignified and respectful people who became servants in their community after they came back from the war. They kept on giving back."
The sisters were among about 100 people who came to the sidewalk outside KLRN, San Antonio's public television station, to protest tonight's start of "The War," a 14-hour documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns that weaves the stories of so-called ordinary Americans into the fabric of global war. Burns mingled wartime facts and film footage with narratives from people in four American communities who talked about the impact that the war had on their lives.
Latino perspectives and contributions were not included until after the documentary was completed and Hispanic groups complained. Burns tried to settle the nationwide controversy by adding 30 minutes of footage onto the end of the first, fifth and sixth episodes that tell about Latino and Native American war perspectives.
But that wasn't enough in the eyes of local Hispanic veteran and community groups, who organized the Defend the Honor San Antonio Coalition and came out Saturday to urge people to boycott the broadcast and its PBS corporate sponsors.
"This is the nation's story and we are being excluded from the nation's story," said historian Gilberto Hinojosa. "This is crumbs. They gave us the crumbs."
(Excerpt) Read more at mysanantonio.com ...
I heard him interviewed by Bob Costas. He admits he is left leaning. However he said dropping the atomic bombs was absolutely the right thing to do to save lives.
They tried to make correlations to the current WOT but you can tell they don't really get it. They say the two wars are not similar because we don't have to sacrifice as a nation to fight the WOT (no rationing, no draft). Somehow they see this as a bad thing!
They don't seem to understand that the Islamists are todays Hitlers and are carrying forward his quest to wipe Jews from the earth.
Both he and Costas admitted that Bush's war, like WWII, has a noble purpose, to free part of the world, and not is a war for conquest or profit.
I think the series will be very moving and worth watching.
Bingo. I shared a shelter-half with a 'Latino' from the Southwest after we landed in Marseilles in 1944. I am Irish. The squad leader was an Italian from the East. I don't know what the platoon leader was but he was killed in Germany and buried in France.
The exclusion of the views and experiences of Jewish veterans with hay fever makes this series unwatchable and probably anti-Semitic, too!
Best post on thread by #6, congrats.
Some people need to get over themselves.
"They", whomever "they" are, will try to do both:
They have been left out of documentaries, history books and movies, but if a grass-roots proposal gets off the ground, Latino veterans would be immortalized in San Antonio.
Today, a committee of Hispanic veterans and others is set to announce plans for a proposed 21,500-square-foot facility that would highlight the accomplishments and contributions of Hispanics in the military.
If it becomes reality, the National Hispanic Military Heroes Museum would honor 42 Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients, Latino admirals and generals, Hispanic astronauts, fighter pilots, Latino veterans who are female and the "Aztec Eagles," pilots and support personnel from Mexico who were in World War II, also known as El Escuadrón 201 (Mexican Expeditionary Force 201st Fighter Squadron), among other exhibits.
The museum also would recognize "everyday" Latino veterans, according to a preliminary proposal.
One of the positive results of World War II is that it brought many of us together. This kind of whining pushes us apart. Wonder how many of my Irish ancestors will be honored along with El Escuadrón 201?
The Burns WW II series seen from the soldier’s and his family’s viewpoint begins today. Latinos were included almost as an afterthought since there weren’t all that many in the US Army at the time from the sample towns. Should be an excellent documentary.
No suspect about it. He is Liberal, but watch and judge how successfully he kept his political leanings out of the documentary.
Nice - I hope you don’t mind me swiping that as a tagline.
My old one was “Time Man of the Year 2006 - and I’m darned proud of it,” but I’ve been looking for something new ever since I found out I didn’t get anything for winning.
The politics of hate, resentment, racial pandering and political correctness is the legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Ted Kennedy and others who place the interests of the Democratic party before their sworn duty to the nation and their responsibility to the constitution.
During the Battle of the Bulge with Germans disguised as Americans behind American lines, it was mentioned that the sight of a Black soldier coming around the corner was a total relief since he would not have been anything but American. Don’t know if that actually happened, but it could have since everybody was in the combat situation then.
He is good at what he does.
Yes.
Someone just sent this email link to an 11 minute interview with Burns on MSNBC.
Worth a thread all by itself, I think.
Yeah, the poor Latinos. Stuffed into their own Latino regiments during WWII. Not being allowed to serve side-by-side with their fellow countrymen.
And that all-Latino air group...what was their name... oh yeah, the El Paso Airmen. Who can possible forget their contribution to the war effort.
They won’t be happy, of course, until Spanish is the nation’s primary language and the the seat of government is renamed Santa Ana City.
Exactly! I believe all American forces considered themselves "Americans" then and were not the whiners that some are now.
CAIR and the old time pros; The REVERENDS Jesse “shake ‘em down” Jackson and Al “not too sharp” Sharpton.
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