Ken Burns' Documentary - "The War"

Has anyone else been watching Ken Burns's latest documentary "The War" the past couple of weeks? Sheldon and I are totally addicted. It may be 15 hours of material, but it's whipping right by for us. I totally love it that I'm finally filling in all the holes in my knowledge of the various battles that I've always heard mentioned but never really understood (Guadalcanal, The Battle of the Bulge). And the interviews and film footage are extraordinary.

There's also been some lesser-known facts emerge in the course of the documentary that have really startled me: that German subs were patrolling the east coast of America and blowing up boats of supplies, and that by 1944 Hitler had been training certain soldiers as "administrators" for the United States with the expectation that he'd be invading the U.S. and need a corp of military men with detailed knowledge of the territory to run the country when he won.

Have you seen any parts of the documentary series? What do you think?

I got one word for you: TiVo. It will make your lives SO much easier, and with roomies to split the bill, it'll cost next to nothing. =) Make sure to get one with a big hard drive so everyone can record their fave programs. You'll never have to watch live TV again (I'm not sure what that is anymore. ) Plus you can fast-forward through commercials so an hour-long show is really only 40 minutes. I guess with PBS, you can't FF. But you can pause shows too and come back and watch them a few days later if life gets too hectic. Don't forget the Rewind feature. I often find myself listening to some commercial or DJ on the radio and missing what they said. I want to rewind it but then remember it's not TiVo.

Actually, in this case, TiVo isn't necessary at all. Everyone can watch episodes of "The War" either through Comcast On Demand (in which they're available any time) or the day after the broadcast on KQED's digital channel, Encore.

So no one has any excuse not to watch these! We were just too addicted to miss a first viewing last night!

I have & it's been so well-done, each episode I think better than the previous one! Last night's final episode was heartwarming (the stuff on Inouye was great!) & the most engrossing one for me, kudos to Ken Burns. I'm like you Mary, I even skipped my Tue vball twice for the War even though I have comcast. Also, one of my co-workers is from Luverne so I get some interesting commentary afterwards!

I've got quite a bit to say about this documentary. It was incredible. I only have time right now to share that there's a website for The War that includes additional footage and interviews that were not in the actual series.

http://www.pbs.org/thewar/

BTW Peter, I thought the Daniel Inouye interviews were some of the best interviews of the series. His medal of honor citation expounds a bit on his story of charging the German machine gun nests while wounded and taking out two of them before getting put out of action by another wound in the leg.

Read this:
http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/citations_...sei/inouye.html

And then after all this, in Oakland (CA assumed), while he was on his way back home to Hawaii with a hook for a right hand and dressed in full uniform, he tried to get a haircut and the barber told him, "We don't cut Jap hair."

This series is something that deserves to be shown on a major network television channel. I say this especially in light of the current on going War in Iraq. There are many documentaries that show the depth of sacrifice for soldiers in a War and combat situation, but this one does an especially good job of showing the meaning of sacrifice to an entire society engaged in a War.

The returning soldiers took up the promises made by the GI Bill, got an education, and spawned the birth of the modern middle class. It's really depressing to think how within the span of two generations we can go from "the greatest generation" to a society that feels it has a birthright to drive the biggest cars they can and lives to consume.

By the way, here's a lead to one of the sweetest songs ever written in tribute to the soldiers of World War II.

It's a song named "Debt of Honor" by Jay Howlett, a local in a favorite of mine.

You can listen to a sample of the song here:
http://cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/jayhowlett2-02.m3u

and you can check out the rest of the CD and buy it here:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/jayhowlett2

I highly recommend Jay's music if you're a fan of great folk music and great storytelling.

They're still showing the series on KTEH I believe in case you missed it like I did. I'm recording it. I love my DVR.