We invite everyone to spend a few minutes watching two clips at Youtube. Try to imagine you’re 19 years old, thousands of miles from home and realize this battle, this day, could easily be your last. Or maybe imagine you’re a wife with a husband over there, in harm’s way, or a mother whose son is in the thick of it.
This is not Hollywood-produced entertainment, not two segments of a quaint old black-and-white TV program. It’s part of an award-winning documentary series, one of the best ever made, “Victory at Sea.”
These segments are about the Battle of Okinawa, but exemplify the courage and sacrifice of our veterans of all wars. See who we owe and what our freedom cost so many.
Victory at Sea Episode 25 Part 2.
Victory at Sea Episode 25 Part 3.
If you’re one to pray, please say one for our men and women in harm’s way now. And likewise, for those at Fort Hood, Texas, who lost their lives this week to madness, and for their loved ones. If prayer is not your thing, please give a grateful, hopeful thought.
It’s not much to do, but maybe doing it somehow matters.
The WWII videos you recommended are very appropriate, it is the one conflict in the past 70 years the politicians got right, one that had to be fought and was, initially, a backs to the wall fight until the “Arsenal of Democracy” got into full production. All conflicts since have been botched by governments, but not by the Veterans who fought in them.
All conflicts since? I’d wager every conflict in the history of the world was never botched by the vets. Empty suits, brass and greedy industrialists thousands of miles away are the culprits. The old and rich send the young and poor off to die. But yeah, at least they got WWII right.
I’m trying to think if I’ve ever seen this series. If they had it on PBS or something similar in the 80s, I might have. I do recall them showing The World At War, that’s a set worth owning, too.
I’m not the praying type, but I’ll tip my hat.
Holte, there’s much truth to what you say. Having studied the context of the times when Presidents Truman and Johnson committed large numbers of troops to Cold War conflicts, I’m willing to cut them some slack. Our rearview mirror is much clearer than what they could see of the road ahead.
While World War II was an absolutely necessary and just war, it’s worth noting that the myopia of all allied leaders from World War I except President Wilson set us up for World War II. Their successors in the 1930′s finished the job. Had the Allies responded to Hitler’s unilateral retaking of the Rheinland with the ’30s equivalent of a Desert Storm operation, driving the Wehrhmact back into Germany in humiliating defeat, and following that up with confiscation and destruction of arms and arms-making capabilities in Germany, Germans well might have turned on Hitler and the Nazis, averting that just war.
Randal, military history includes some spectacular screw-ups by troops and military leaders, but overall you’re right.
Some PBS stations, at least, did show “Victory at Sea” during the late 1980s or early ’90s. If I remember correctly, it was a somewhat condensed or abbreviated version of the series that originally aired in the mid-1950′s, but still excellent. I’m sure if you had seen it, you would remember it well. The musical score, by Richard Rodgers, is superb in its own right. I had the original RCA album, but seem to have lost it in a move years ago. If you have access to it through the library, watch a few episodes on Youtube, to get the context, then listen to the album. If it doesn’t send chills down your spine and leave you saying, “Wow, that is impressive,” you’ve been smokin’ the wrong stuff.
The World at War, The Unknown War and the Battleline series are all very good. I have the book, The Unknown War, about Russia’s Great Patriotic War. If you’re interested, it’s gripping and extremely good. We in the West are woefully ignorant of what the Russians went through and what they managed to do to the monsters who invaded their homeland. I came away from it with immense respect for them.
Bee, IMO sincerity is what matters; format not so much.