Saluting America's Veterans
Burbank, California—Whether cheering for John Wayne's screen hero or rooting for Kelly's Heroes, seeing war movies as a child with my father, a veteran, was a unique experience. Dad was usually silent during Hollywood's depictions of war. He knew the reality. Having fought in battle, having lost much of his hearing—and his comrades—he neither romanticized killing nor turned bitter about having done it. He wanted us kids to think about war.
Growing up, war was carried on live television, with people clinging to choppers in Saigon, Arab terrorists seizing passenger planes and cruise ships and murdering Jews, Americans and Olympic athletes and with Iran's religious extremists—including its current dictator—pistol-whipping Americans in the streets of Teheran. Dad let movies serve as a catalyst to discuss what was happening—and war was happening, from communist Soviets shooting down a 747 with a congressman on board to continuous acts of Islamic terrorism.
Dad knew that news anchors and teachers could not be counted on to convey the context of war. Instead, he sought to stimulate our minds and he found springboards in motion pictures, from Patton, starring George C. Scott as the general who commanded allied troops in Europe against the Nazis (one of Fox's DVD War Classics), to A Bridge Too Far and MacArthur, which he took us to see in theaters.
Whether ruminating over Gen. Patton's eccentricities, such as the famous soldier slap, discussing his ingenious strategy in defeating the National Socialist Germans, or debating whether President Truman should have fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War on the drive home, movies invariably sparked a debate of ideas: what is war? Is it proper for government to draft Americans to fight in one? What are we fighting—and what do we stand—for?
Together, Dad and I saw some pretty obscure pictures, from The Big Red One, Samuel Fuller's World War 2 movie, to Gene Hackman in March or Die, and we caught some on the tube, too, including the Warner Bros. epic Battle of the Bulge, Breaker Morant and Gunga Din. Repeated TV viewings raised issues of empire-building in the agonizing Zulu, starring Michael Caine, and brought forth bold pioneers Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda building a nation (out of making a home) in John Ford's Drums Along the Mohawk.
Many war movies were discovered later, on my own, dramatizing the lonely choices one makes in battle—Gregory Peck flying high in Twelve O'Clock High, Jimmy Stewart standing alone in The Mortal Storm, Peter Finch uniting Israel in Raid on Entebbe—and others, including Arise, My Love, We Were Soldiers and Stanley Kramer's postwar classic about whether a society is responsible for evil acts of state in Judgment at Nuremberg with Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster and Marlene Dietrich—who fled Nazi Germany and denounced Hitler—in a sad, ironic performance.
With Americans being killed, wounded and maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is greater gratitude in my heart—since my dad made it out alive—and it is impossible not to remember how, when asked about his battles, he bowed his head and forked his food at the dinner table. Think about war, he urged, with Hollywood on hand to recreate the rest: a family nearly wiped out in The Patriot—a way of life Gone with the Wind—a generation sacrificed on The Longest Day—and don't forget the iron-willed women of David O. Selznick's saga Since You Went Away—porcelain Claudette Colbert ready to break, Jennifer Jones with her beloved soldier in the barn, and kid sister Shirley Temple wondering whether daddy's coming home.
War claimed a part of my father's life, and there are countless more like him—more every day—silent, hurt survivors who go by the term veteran. I salute each of them. Today is your day—it is Veterans Day—and, in the name of the liberty for which we stand, for which you fight, this old soldier's proud son wishes to say: Thank you.
MOVIES ON DVD
• Kelly's Heroes
• Patton
• A Bridge Too Far
• MacArthur
• The Big Red One
• March or Die
• Battle of the Bulge
• Breaker Morant
• Gunga Din
• Zulu
• Drums Along the Mohawk
• Twelve O'Clock High
• The Mortal Storm (on VHS)
• Raid on Entebbe
• We Were Soldiers
• Judgment at Nuremberg
• The Patriot
• Gone with the Wind
• The Longest Day
• Since You Went Away
Growing up, war was carried on live television, with people clinging to choppers in Saigon, Arab terrorists seizing passenger planes and cruise ships and murdering Jews, Americans and Olympic athletes and with Iran's religious extremists—including its current dictator—pistol-whipping Americans in the streets of Teheran. Dad let movies serve as a catalyst to discuss what was happening—and war was happening, from communist Soviets shooting down a 747 with a congressman on board to continuous acts of Islamic terrorism.
Dad knew that news anchors and teachers could not be counted on to convey the context of war. Instead, he sought to stimulate our minds and he found springboards in motion pictures, from Patton, starring George C. Scott as the general who commanded allied troops in Europe against the Nazis (one of Fox's DVD War Classics), to A Bridge Too Far and MacArthur, which he took us to see in theaters.
Whether ruminating over Gen. Patton's eccentricities, such as the famous soldier slap, discussing his ingenious strategy in defeating the National Socialist Germans, or debating whether President Truman should have fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War on the drive home, movies invariably sparked a debate of ideas: what is war? Is it proper for government to draft Americans to fight in one? What are we fighting—and what do we stand—for?
Together, Dad and I saw some pretty obscure pictures, from The Big Red One, Samuel Fuller's World War 2 movie, to Gene Hackman in March or Die, and we caught some on the tube, too, including the Warner Bros. epic Battle of the Bulge, Breaker Morant and Gunga Din. Repeated TV viewings raised issues of empire-building in the agonizing Zulu, starring Michael Caine, and brought forth bold pioneers Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda building a nation (out of making a home) in John Ford's Drums Along the Mohawk.
Many war movies were discovered later, on my own, dramatizing the lonely choices one makes in battle—Gregory Peck flying high in Twelve O'Clock High, Jimmy Stewart standing alone in The Mortal Storm, Peter Finch uniting Israel in Raid on Entebbe—and others, including Arise, My Love, We Were Soldiers and Stanley Kramer's postwar classic about whether a society is responsible for evil acts of state in Judgment at Nuremberg with Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster and Marlene Dietrich—who fled Nazi Germany and denounced Hitler—in a sad, ironic performance.
With Americans being killed, wounded and maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is greater gratitude in my heart—since my dad made it out alive—and it is impossible not to remember how, when asked about his battles, he bowed his head and forked his food at the dinner table. Think about war, he urged, with Hollywood on hand to recreate the rest: a family nearly wiped out in The Patriot—a way of life Gone with the Wind—a generation sacrificed on The Longest Day—and don't forget the iron-willed women of David O. Selznick's saga Since You Went Away—porcelain Claudette Colbert ready to break, Jennifer Jones with her beloved soldier in the barn, and kid sister Shirley Temple wondering whether daddy's coming home.
War claimed a part of my father's life, and there are countless more like him—more every day—silent, hurt survivors who go by the term veteran. I salute each of them. Today is your day—it is Veterans Day—and, in the name of the liberty for which we stand, for which you fight, this old soldier's proud son wishes to say: Thank you.
MOVIES ON DVD
• Kelly's Heroes
• Patton
• A Bridge Too Far
• MacArthur
• The Big Red One
• March or Die
• Battle of the Bulge
• Breaker Morant
• Gunga Din
• Zulu
• Drums Along the Mohawk
• Twelve O'Clock High
• The Mortal Storm (on VHS)
• Raid on Entebbe
• We Were Soldiers
• Judgment at Nuremberg
• The Patriot
• Gone with the Wind
• The Longest Day
• Since You Went Away
