The War - No Place for Children

I watched 6 hours of Ken Burns’ The War on PBS this past week. The documentary focuses on the effects of American towns during World War II; specifically Sacramento (California), Mobile (Alabama), Waterbury (Connecticut), and Luverne (Minnesota).

Using in depth interviews with residents of the towns and soldiers from the town, the documentary brings the war, which is a huge conflict in losses and scope to a more personal level. It’s gripping and exhausting at the same time, especially after doing a marathon of 6 hours and not taking a break. I almost feel that one needs to watch it all (all 14.5 hours of it) in one sitting to get the full effect of the series. By being fully immersed in these people’s lives and not taking a break you start associating the length of the movie with the length of the war. By the time that the soldiers are exhausted from fighting as the war draws to and end you will be too.

In one the episdoes, I heard a quote that I absolutely love. During the constant shelling at Anzio, a soldier exclamied, “God help us! Come yourself, don’t send Jesus. This is no place for children.”