Tuesday, September 18, 2007

THE WAR A Ken Burns Film

PBS will start airing THE WAR, directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, Sunday September 23, 2007.


View the preview: http://www.pbs.org/thewar/video_clips.htm

It's 29 minutes long, but time well spent.





Harry J. McKinney (Mac) was my Daddy. He's passed on, now, but he was a SEABEE. We didn't hear many details of his service, but we sure knew his pride.

He came to visit when we were stationed at Pearl during the 70's.

He and I drove and we drove and we drove, looking and for Red Hill, because that was where he had helped construct a "whole lot of buildings." He just could not believe that it had been dug up and carried away to make room for the highway.


He went to the Arizona Memorial, but we and all around us got a heartful. "They wouldn't let us get those boys home to their mothers." His opinion, but one we heard very loudly.



Then there was Punchbowl National Cemetery.

My Daddy wasn't one for reading historical markers, but he walked every step, around every one of those great stones. He found names he said he hadn't thought of for years, and the tear would show --- before he moved on. All he said about the little sand boxes of the battles across the Pacific, was "Yeah, looks about right."

"They didn't like us boys with the cats. We'd just raise that blade and go on," was all I ever heard about I Iwo Jima. Oh, there was something about trying to build a runway, and it being hard because they kept landing planes on it. But I'm not sure where he was talking about.







So, I'll be watching THE WAR because that's my Daddy, uncle Bob, uncle George, uncle Orn, uncle David,

AND the rest of my family that waited and kept things going at home

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