"The Pacific"

I just finished watching the 10 part film "The Pacific".  I was very much impressed with this film from Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman.  I was fortunate enough to view it in the Blue Ray format which proved to be simply magnificent. If you have not seen this film I highly recommend it.

I was reminded of a visit with an uncle a few years ago in San Diego who has subsequently passed away. On my visit I was left alone with him when his daughter left to run some errands. As we visited he began to tell me of his experiences in the South Pacific during World War II. He had been in several battles as a soldier in the US Army. Just as he began to tell me about the invasion Iwo Jima his daughter returned.  He only got to the part about landing on the beach and advancing when he was suddenly overcome with emotion and could say no more. Later that day his daughter told me that was the first time she heard her father speak of the War.

What my uncle experienced was not so different from what others had experienced, in that war or any other war. I served in the military but was not required to experience the real horror that is war.  I believe those who glorify war have not been in it. The film The Pacific brings the full force of the brutality of war to us. I must admit I cried almost the entire length of the last episode where the soldiers we had seen in war, were now returning home, returning home to a world that would not, and could not understand.