Thursday, November 11, 2010

The WORLD at WAR

Little left-field, this one. World at War is a BBC series from the 70's about World War II. Hosted by Sir Laurence Olivier, it's a dry, informative, and oddly compelling series with a nice dramatic score. It feels like sitting down with that one Professor who genuinely cared, and discovering he was actually in the war. I've ditched most of my "box sets" but something about this one ...maybe it's comfort food of a sort.
My generation grew up with grandparents who faught in 'The War" and all us boys theorized about what kind of soldiers we'd make. Until maybe 25 or 30 I still believed there was a chance I'd be "drafted" if another war began, and it was a scary but romantic thought. I suspect that the generation coming up behind us sees WWII as something Hollywood conjured up ...tricky to text from a trench.
Like everyone out there, I've faced some difficult days, but war...
I can't imagine.

I'll spend today's spare hours watching The World at War, reminding myself that men and women born a long time ago fought for the freedom I enjoy very much.

2 comments:

Patrick said...

You were always more of a Vietnam type soldier - me - dunno, mongol hoardes..
Thanks for the reminder of what day it is, and why. I might watch this later today...
We are a generation that's been spared that for the most part, I think we have a different war to fight

Arthur Canning said...

We sure do, Bro.