In the beginning I was reluctant to watch another film that gloified the U.S particpation in World War 2. Most of the time World War 2 has been presented to us as if the U.S. saved the world from Hitler, when we really one part of a larger allied force. One thing Burns has not covered is the isolatioists republiican in congrees who refuesed to go to war and help England until we were attcked in 1942. The war had been raging in Eurooe since 1938-39. The Russians and Britist held back Germany for years before we got involved.

However the Burns film does not cover the usual history and gives plenty of creidit to the allies. It is not so U.S centric. It puts you right in the action with some pretty violent scenes. It depicts the reality of death, failures, and victories of war. It is certnaily not a pro-war film and there is much in the film about the military failures of the U.S. and the victoreis of not just the U.S but of the allies. What is differnt is Burns uses film archives from U.S as well as allied archives. It adds a totally different perspective to the war. It presents a lot more information about allies than any thing else I have seen on World War 2.

I especially like the way Burns has fouced on 4 towns & cities, not the usual places. The film shows much of what was going on in the U.S plus on every front from a humanistic approach showing how both indiviuals at home and on the front were affected by ths war.This iflm is not a history film but will be a good addition to traditional history classes.

I learned a few new things last night. For instance I did not know that Musollini was deposed as the leader of Italy during the war and the Germans protected Musolini as pupit government in the north attempt to keep Itay on thier side. I also discovered last night, by watching this program that the booklet with numbered coupons I found in my parents stuff upon their death, were war ration coupons. Thus another family memorabilia mystery solved.

In addition to your post, add these:

Saipan: Japanese military encourage civilians to commit suicide rather than let Americans win.

Iwo Jima: More than 6,000 Americans killed (not just "casualties") as Japanese defended every square inch of the tiny island. 22,000 Japanese killed.

Okinawa: More then 12,000 Americans killed! More than 66,000 Japanese military killed (untold numbers of civilians).

An invasion of the mainland would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties, mostly civilian.

The Japanese got off light with the A-bombing of only two cities.

Please, have some perspective over the bloody thing. It's not intended to be an authoritative, comprehensive film about anything. And I really, really doubt that anyone utterly ignorant of WWII (and likely to be confused) is going to sit through 15 hours of PBS, half of which conflicts with Sunday and Monday night football.

My only real complaint is that many PBS stations (apaprently not mine) are airing edited versions of the film for prime time.

I had three uncles and a stepfather, who all fought in the Canadian army during the war.

My uncles never talked much about what happened during war, even when pressed by me.

What they did take issue with was anything that glorified it, that championed an ideology.

They would tell me that the war, to the troops on the fields being ripped to pieces by shells was about survival and nothing else mattered. To a man, they had more disdain and anger against the british chain of command that they felt used Canadian soldiers as cannon fodder than they did against the average german soldier, who in reality they probably had a lot more in common with. To thier credit, they never saw good vs evil in pure national terms, as they saw both courage and atrocities commited by all sides, day in and day out.

The one thing that was passed on to me on stepfather's passing was a bloodied copy of Mein Kampf with a picture of a german soldiers wife and baby daughter inside it. Bob found it on the battlefield and it was the only thing he kept from the war, to him it was a reminder that war produces death and not much else.

we have become forced to acknowledge that basically, we "caused" that awful conflagration [WWII] every bit as much as did the Axis powers.

And the woman walking down the street in her tight skirt "caused" her own rape, too, I suppose.

Your reasoning is just as flawed.

First this is not a boring fact presenting war or history film, it is ART.

From RAy:

"...with some sort of feel-good jazzy sax melody. It left me turning down the volume even at expense of missing the commentary." maybe if Ray had not turned off the volumn he would have gotten the conncetion and heard the content of the letters written home. This was the music America listened to during the war.

Burns does give the numbers of enmey and allies killed in each confict he covers. In fact in showing the bombings of German cities he shows the ruins form our of our bombings, how it killed civlians. Did you miis the piles burned German cilvian bodies piled in the streets.

In North Africa, I got his point about the failures. We had go to war in haste, the trops were not properly trained and the U.S had an incompetent leader in Africa, Teh Gemrans had better euwpment, TEh British hd been fighting teh war longer and had better traning. There was no glorificaitn of Paten, he was mentoned breifly, and Burns made it very clear that in Africa itwas training on the job for the U.S troops.

The techique of jumping from war scenes to back home makes a conncetion and is much more enjoyable than boring linear presentaitons.

Oh, it is ART you say! Well, never mind then my bad.

Really, I will say that the "connection" you point out between the music listened to during the war and the killing did occur to me. Still I thought it was a poor choice and frankly a clumsy bit of what you call "ART". Additionally the fact that a production jumps from war scenes to back home is obviously a technique that did not work for me. Again the attempt at connection did not connect with this viewer.

Just to clarify: I respect the great effort and quality of this production and it's apparent good intentions. My comment is motivated by the original Salon commentator's tone which seems to want to anoint the program as a sort of national treasure. I don't be believe the program, as much as I've so far seen, is particularly distinguished in its rather large field endeavor. "ART" not withstanding.

Roy