Monday, May 10, 2010

"The Pacific" According To The Garps

Just re-watching episodes Three and Four of "The Pacific," I missed a couple of weeks traveling around and for some reason today's re-run is from a couple of weeks ago.

I enjoyed "Band of Brothers," and I thought it did justice to the guys in the Airborne, but this "Pacific" just makes these Marines look like a bunch of dorks who won the war by accident, terrified the entire time. For a character to refer to John Basilone like, "we all did stuff like that," well maybe he didn't win the war single handed but he was wildly heroic in a unique manner on more than one occasion and got two Medals of Honor, dying for the last one, and the Marines named the entrance road to El Toro after him. He made a distinct impression on somebody, and if you read the accounts, he'll make a distinct impression on you too, he was not just some "everybody," and real Marines know it.

And Maybe Eugene Sledge will come to life soon, maybe they'll let him turn into something besides a semi-shocked-out cry-baby. In real life, he accomplished quite a bit at Pelilui and Okinawa, and afterward, and wrote a great book about it, you should read it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nothing bores me more than books and films about WWII.