Posted on 10/13/2006 5:53:36 PM PDT by concentric circles
The former coach has never seen a war movie. When you've seen the real thing, why would you want to?
He doesn't need to sit in a darkened movie theater to be reminded of the buddies he lost in World War II and Korea, Jack McCaffrey says.
Guys who never got to raise a family, have a career, retire and go fishing. Guys who never got the chance to grow old.
No, when you've seen the real thing, you don't need to see a war movie.
"But I'm thinking about going to see this one," the 83-year-old Woodland Hills resident said Wednesday. "I've read excerpts from the book. This one is different."
The movie he's talking about is "Flags of Our Fathers," a best-selling book that has been made into a movie directed by Oscar-winner Clint Eastwood.
It depicts the lives of the six Marines who raised the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima, a moment captured by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal and recorded forever in history.
From what he's read, the movie is not so much about death and war as it is about life and the curse of forced fame, McCaffrey says.
Not exactly a war movie. More a human tragedy.
He was there that day in 1945 - a 21-year-old 2nd lieutenant sitting in a foxhole, a quarter-mile from where Easy Company erected the flag on Mount Suribachi.
"You could feel everyone's spirits rise, and a surge of pride come out of every foxhole," says McCaffrey, who coached football and track at Van Nuys, Canoga Park and Taft High schools before he retired in 1980.
"Everyone cheered, and the battleships at sea blew their horns. We were all filled with pride, but none of us thought it would be such a monumental moment in history."
During his 30-year career as an educator, he never talked about war with the boys he coached, McCaffrey said. He just couldn't.
"What was to talk about?" McCaffrey asked. "How you survived and your friends didn't? How you got lucky, and they didn't? A lot of us have carried that guilt around."
The history books say that more than 6,800 Americans died in the 36-day battle for that eight-square-mile island in February and March 1945.
In less than a week on Iwo Jima, McCaffrey went from a rookie replacement officer to commander of Dog Company, 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines. It wasn't that he was so good. It was that he was still alive.
"There were nine or 10 officers in the company," he says. "I was the last one who hadn't been killed or wounded. My command lasted exactly one day."
With his gunnery sergeant standing next to him, company commander McCaffrey looked through a pair of binoculars on a dark night when a shell exploded in the sky above, silhouetting his body to a sniper.
"The bullet went through my hand, shattered the binoculars, and it went into my left eye," McCaffrey says.
At dawn, he was airlifted to a hospital on Guam before being sent home to a naval hospital in Long Beach. World War II was over for McCaffrey, but he enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves and was later sent to Korea for a year.
Two wars in a span of eight years. McCaffrey had seen enough of the real thing. He didn't need to see the movie.
My grandfather liked war movies and he saw it up close and personal in Europe.
The people I know who want to see movies like this one, want to do so not because they like, enjoy or find war entertaining.
They simply want to gain a perspective on it, something that is difficult if not impossible to do unless you have actually experienced it.
I think "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers" are a great, great tribute to those who served, exposing what they did to another generation. And we can all accept that is a good thing.
I'm planing on seeing the move with my Father. Two Marines going to pay tribute to those who have gone before....Semper Fi!
***"What was to talk about?" McCaffrey asked. "How you survived and your friends didn't? How you got lucky, and they didn't? A lot of us have carried that guilt around." **
There is no guilt there Jack. Only in your mind.
Those who didnt come out with you wouldnt want you to feel that guilt.
My Dad enjoyed war movies - the more unrealistic, the better.
He had 20 Air medals as a 1st Lt, flying fighters and bombers in WW2 & Korea. He was killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam.
While bloodier than most WWII films, I don't think BAND OF BROTHERS has such realism that it stands head and shoulders above others. If you track down the history of a German POW who was from Eugene, Oregon and was murdered by American soldiers after being given a cigarette and it happened that way, maybe I'll give the mini-series more credence.
Medal of Honor recipient George Mabry was there at D-Day and on into Germany and as an officer he told his men that if anyone made an act of reprisal to a German atrocity he would see that they were sent up river.
Well. I pay my respects to your dad...and I thank him and your family for his sacrifice in the service of his country.
Great men like your dad and mine...
I do not rate is as a great one because of its realism. And I certainly do not rate it as high or low on the basis of accounts of men killing prisoners, didn't even enter into my calculation.
I rate it highly (as well as Saving Private Ryan) because it shows the love that men can have for each other, forged in the heat of combat, that rivals in intensity that for a spouse.
I was not there, perhaps you were and know better than I do. It is just my opinion.
McCaffrey had seen enough of the real thing. He didn't need to see the movie.
Now thats what the writer himself wrote, but here is what McCaffrey himself says earlier.
"But I'm thinking about going to see this one," the 83-year-old Woodland Hills resident said Wednesday. "I've read excerpts from the book. This one is different."
Sounds like he wants to see the movie, keep in mind, that he says this right after the author of this article has wrote (for the first time)
No, when you've seen the real thing, you don't need to see a war movie.
It sounds like the author doesn't want him to see this movie, and is against it, and McCaffrey (who is farmiliar with the book) is interested in seeing this.
One of the problems with the media today, is to often, they impose their own ideas and beliefs into articles, and mislead readers into thinking those beliefs or opinions came from the subject, when they did not (or no direct quote is provided to prove so).
I want to make it clear that I wasn't there. I was an easy going Cold Warrior all the way.
But I do have a theory on the 1861 to 1865 War. If the Confederates in their worst showings of the war at Island #10, Fort Henry, and Fort Donelson had fought half as tough as the Japanese on Iwo Jima, I would be writing this in the CSA today.
I picked up on that...there is a contradiction there. I wouldn't trust the press.
My dad served through WWII, Korea and Vietnam, and was asked every year to speak at the Veterans Day ceremonies in our town.
On the 50th Anniversary of the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, he spoke on the subject, saying people today are too quick to judge what happened back then, and that it was the right decision, and if the identical situation ever came up again, he hoped we would make the choice the same way.
The next day, the local paper had as their headline "WWII Vet Advocates Use of Nuclear Weapons". Frikking typical. They made my dad sound like a lunatic when he was making a logical, heartfelt analysis. I do not trust any journalists.
I have to take exception with that in the same way Tom Hanks did. Hanks' own opinion of "Saving Private Ryan" changed after he agreed to become involved with "Band of Brothers". When he agreed to work with the real survivors in making Band of Brothers they made him agree to do it right, not do it Spielberg.
While filming Saving Private Ryan that re shot one scene over twenty times...because his helmet kept falling off. It never once occurred to Spielberg and Hanks that it kept falling off because they did fall off.
Another thing the real soldiers insisted on...toning down the special effects. As one said, you don't portray horror with a gazillion gallons of fake blood...ala Spielberg.
Once Band of Brothers was over Hanks credited it with teaching him how it really was...and that wasn't what they had done in Saving Private Ryan.
I'm thankful Spielberg isn't doing this moving.
Hmmm. I am not sure about that...IMHO the Johnny Rebs gave a more than fair accounting of themselves as soldiers...they could never have won though no matter what, the industrial might of the North would eventually have rolled over them. You could easily make the same argument regarding the failures of the Southern Army about the North...at First Bull Run, for example.
I lived in Japan and the Phillipines as a kid, and the interesting thing is, the memory of the war seemed a lot fresher there than here in the USA. As a Boy Scout, I marched the route of the Bataan Death March. I have read pretty extensively on the Pacific War, and it is difficult not to feel respect for the Japanese fighting man, even when seeing the sadism and brutality he was capable of.
Unusual people, the Japanese. I do like them, but they are such a paradox. Capable of such great beauty and sensitivity, but also such incredible brutality. It is no wonder Asia is STILL nervous about a militarized Japan.
I have the opinion I do of "Saving Private Ryan" because it was...revolutionary in its own way, and showed D-Day as most Americans had never ever seen it.
My young nephew saw the movie, and afterwards, said "That never happened. It wasn't like that..." (speaking of the landing scene) I had to tell him that yes, it did happen, and much worse than he saw.
I think the movie did a great service, it opened the eyes of many people to whom it was ancient history.
Robert Capa's son also denounced it publicly. His father is the photographer who took many of the pictures of the actual landings we all know today...the photographs Spielberg claimed to have used for his inspiration. Capa's son said there was no comparison and also commented on "overuse" of special effects.
The problem with movies like Saving Private Ryan is their overuse of such effects ends up drowning out the individual incidents that were horrific but are now lost in the background.
Keep in mind, even Hanks himself ended up agreeing after working with veterans of the war.
I am concerned about "Flags" because the ads say that it saw more Medals of Honor (24) awarded "than any other battle in history". This is demonstrably untrue (58 were awarded for Gettysburg and some Civil War battles saw even more awarded*), although it would have been correct to say that it saw more MOHs than any other battle in WWII or in the 20th century.
*I am aware that this is a little like comparing apples and oranges given that the only medal for heroism in the Civil War was the MOH-but it does show a certain sloppiness with the facts that I see all too often from Hollywood.
Good catch. I have to admit I'd never thought about the Civil War comparison...I was only thinking WWII when reading text.
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