Posted on 09/26/2007 2:30:49 PM PDT by VOA
This is a "heads-up" for the airing of "The War", the Ken Burns
(Florentine Films) production on PBS.
Not nearly as well done or informative as “Civil War”.
Trying to show that the “Greatest Generation” were nothing but a bunch of racists.
There was a kid in my 6th grade class at Jefferson Elementary School in the Wayne Michigan Community School District (1959) who was enamored with the swastika. He was forever carving it into desk tops, drawing it on books and paper. Our teacher, Mr. George Smith, who had fought in Europe finally nailed the kid. He impressed upon the kid that he would not have a hand to make those kinds of designs if he caught him again, nobody ran home to limp wrist daddy in those days about such things. The kid never did it again in that class.
I experienced something like that from a history professor, even though the course material was supposed to cover medieval Europe. I think a large number of men became educators after seeing so much death. Many years later, they set aside time to tell those stories - even though so many of them are usually tight-lipped about their experiences.
My fifth-grade teacher was also a WWII vet who served in the Navy. I knew he was former military before he said anything about it - the ramrod-straight posture is a sure giveaway. I used to smile at his occasional reference to the "Nipponese". Long after I moved on to high school, he was named the state's poet laureate. A few of his poems offer glimpses into what the Pacific was like, 1941-45.
We are losing those men and women so rapidly now... God bless every last one of them.
My dad was there too, but nothing so exciting as D-Day - N. Africa, Sicily, Anzio (but he was a combat engineer and thus didn't go in until the worst was over), and the Winter War in N. Italy 43-44. He had a couple of close calls, was so slightly wounded he didn't even bother to apply for a PH, and came home to start a family and a business. He's still kickin' at almost 83!
The entire series is WAY too superficial; and, in the rush to get through, the history suffers.
I tape the show and FF when the home front is shown especially Manzinar and Mobile.
Actually, with a very few notable exceptions like the Tuskegee Airman, which practically took a Presidential intervention to get into combat, that's exactly what happened. Black troops were segregated and kept in support units.
I agree with you that those black support units, such as those doing outstanding work on the Red Ball Express, performed very well and should be honored for their service.
It's an important part of the story. The WWII experience directly lead to post-war movements for rights for women and blacks. People saw women doing "mens work" and running households alone. It was hard to deny that the few blacks who got to combat performed superbly, leading to the desegregation of the Army right after the War. And Americans, black and white, from the North and West saw for the first time and first hand race segregation when they were stationed in the South. It had a profound effect on many.
It's part of our past. As President Bush has observed, it's part of the paradox how a slaveholding society became the primary beacon of freedom in the world.
"I don't care what color they are as long as they kill those kraut sons of bitches!"
I too was getting disappointed with all of the negatives. Then I looked at it from another direction. Mr Burns is trying to show all of the negatives; segregation, internment, and botched attacks, not to show how bad America was. He’s showing all of the negatives to show how far people went to win. Thousands died from botched war plans and we still soldiered on to win. Thousands suffered from racism and we still soldiered on to win.
Compare that with today’s war on terror. No draft. Very little racism. No rationing. No one forced to do anything different in their lives unless they want to. And 40% of the country are a bunch of p-—ies who want us to lose.
He is profiteering off the graves of brave men by using war department footage to disparage them...
To what purpose was it mentioned that Carlson’s Raiders murdered Japanese prisoners in retribution for some of their dead at Guadalcanal?
BTW, the unit Patton was talking about was the Black Panthers. One of their number, a Lt. Jack Robinson, in dress uniform, hopped a bus near their training base in the South to go to town. As a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army he refused an order to go to the back of the bus. His commander refused a court-martial referral from the M.P.'s. Robinson was transferred to another black tank battalion where the commander was willing to press charges, but he was acquitted. He never did see combat, but after the war decided to play a little baseball. The rest, as they say, is history . . . .
All,
The one gentlemen around 20 minutes into tonight’s Part 4 mentioned something about a toothpaste tube like vessel with a reversible sharp end or something. I couldn’t understand parts of it — what he called it for example.
But it sounded like a a suicide device should a man find himself in a hopeless situation. A lethal solution inside a toothpaste tube-like delivery system.
Did anyone catch that and did I get the drift of it?
It didn’t sound like he was referring to a slug of self-administered morphine. Or maybe it was morphine, but a fatal dosage.
I am watching it delayed and just saw that part. It was a syrette of moriphine
Does anybody think in those terms any more?
“I am watching it delayed and just saw that part. It was a syrette of moriphine”
Ah—thanks. Must not have been a lethal brew.
I’m 20 min behind myself, jockeying between FR and the show.
bttt
Sorry, but I think it’s a pitiful series. I’ve only watched about 50-60%, but haven’t seen much to indicate that we were fighting Fascism and Nazism, or really that any useful purpose was served by our soldiers’ fighting. Mr. Burns seems not to noticed what the war was really about, so I choose not to notice Mr. Burns any more.
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