The War

This week and last, I watched the PBS series by Ken Burns "The War."
I encourage everyone to see this documentary. I know its 15 hour length may be daunting, but I think it really put that great and tragic war into a new light with which many of us, especially the children of the Baby Boomers, may have never seen.
My own grandpa served in the states training black troops, deemed unfit to go overseas because of a bad back. Many of his friends from the class of 1940 at Texas A&M went to the Philippines and did not survive the Bataan death march.
Trina's grandfather served on an ammunition ship in the Pacific. Neither one talked much about the war, and I think many of the vets didn't discuss the details much to their families and those who didn't go.
14 million Americans wore their country's uniform and served in one of the branches.
Many, many did not make it home.
Average Americans were asked to ration and cut back on consumption, in contrast to today's war where we are asked to spend more.
Like today, many of the fighting men could not see the point of their orders to take an apparently insignificant Pacific island like Iwo Jima or a European town like Bastone. Why spend hundreds or thousands of lives defending or taking these places?
To some, when the German death camps were liberated, at least some of their sacrifices had meaning.
There were no direct connections made to today's conflict but the parallels are there.
Maybe in time we will see why it was necessary to invade Iraq. Maybe it will be worth it.
Over 1,000 WW 2 veterans die every day. If you know one, thank him.