Camp Amache isn't there anymore. There's some concrete slabs and some old plumbing pipes sticking up out of the ground. The wood buildings were scavenged away years ago and the wheat farmers plowed up a lot of it and erased the camp's history under an annual blanket of waving gold.

I am sorry for what our country did to our own citizens. If Amache means anything, it means that when America becomes frightened, the first thing to go is the U.S. Constitution. It's a depressing and scary thought.

I grew up in a house dominated by the ghosts of World War II. My father was an airborne infantry lieutenant in the Bulge. I still have some letters he wrote to my mom on "V mail."

He came back a nervous wreck. He could be a mean man when he was drinking, which was something he tried never to do around us kids. He never talked about what happened over there except to say how much he hated the damned cold weather.

It was only many years after his death that I went looking for anyone who knew him in Belgium. I found plenty. To talk on the phone, and sometimes meet face to face with old men who knew my father when he was young, and they were young, and they were in bitter combat, was such an emotion for me, it's hard to describe.

For one thing, their stories of his heroism, which I never knew and he would not allow me to know, suddenly gave me relief of the sad burden I carried all my young life when he did things I could not understand. Now I know. He was a man who lived his whole life after the war with severe PTSD and that word wasn't even in the dictionary yet. How he must have suffered. How little we knew what was eating him alive.

I wish more young people would take some real interest in the wars and the warriors that this country has produced, and the hard times our country has seen. Ken Burns' documentary will get lots of praise from people my age. But already, I think for 20-somethings, it's as old and irrelevant as ancient history.

I haven't seen any of this, but I have to say I'm not surprised at reactions I'm reading here, based on what Burns' "jazz" documentary was like.

I won't go on about that here but check this link (or click my sig) for more if interested in that story:

http://www.nyobserver.com/node/43861

I think it does matter, by the way. Deliberately NOT reflecting anything in the title about "The American view only" in a doc about WWII just reinforces the ignorance about it. In my experience people overseas are astonished to learn that Americans think we won the war singlehandedly, or even primarily. As someone mentioned, other countries have similar self-centric skewed histories of the war that they teach. That doesn't mean we should too though.

it evokes reviews that are themselves work of art. Gary Kamiya has accomplished just that in this essay, and although I have come to expect great writing from him, it reminds me of some others I have read in the past.

It is worth noting that many such examples of reviews as art are of movies that depict events related to World War II. Time Magazine's near full-issue treatment of "Schindler's List" readily comes to mind, as do any number of reviews of "Saving Private Ryan," "Letters From Iwo Jima," and even "Bridge On The River Kwai."

I think this is no accident. The War was indeed a life-altering event, a "necessary war" that took an incredibly heavy toll on ordinary Americans; one we'd be hard pressed to appreciate today. I learned that first-hand from my uncle, a glider pilot in Europe, as I took a family history from him two years before he died. It was the first and only time that he had ever talked with anyone about what had happened over 60 years ago.

I was wondering whether I should see Ken Burns's film. Now, thanks to Mr. Kamiya, I am glad that I decided to record it, and can hardly wait to see it.

Mr. Burns was done a very fine job so far on this documentary, and yes, alot of people would agree that Midway was a turning point in the Pacific War. But on August 7, 1942, the combined forces of the USN, USMC, USCG, and the USAAC (Air Corps) engaged the Japanese military forces in the largest amphibious landing to date. The battle for Henderson Field and the surrounding islands were vital and extremely important to gain a foothold in the Solomon Islands to deter the Japanese anticipated invasion of New Zealand and ultimately Australia. Everyone paid a price, some more than others, for freedom back then and there were no real political deferments, even Congressmen, actors/actress', amputees, and the homefront did their jobs in service to the country. On February 9, 1943, the invasion of Guadacanal was deemed successful and the island was secure. I am proud that my Dad, a USCG Chief Petty Officer on the USS Hunter Liggett, served in and survived this war and I thank him every day for his service and the patriotism he instilled in me. I hope our country never has to be drawn into another world war ever again. Yep, I agree and I think that they were the country's

"Greatest Generation".

. . . is what we make up after the events. It can never be complete. We may hope to get the facts straight. But gaps will remain. And there will always be a point of view -- albeit, sometimes unintentional. And, yes, hundreds of millions of points of view, if we are talking about World War II.

From what I've seen of "The War," it seems pretty laid back, with not nearly the drive of "The World at War." It is a documentary effort of and about how Americans viewed "the war." It attempts to convey the tremendous insularity, ignorance but also idealism of Americans. Most civilized men are not easily murderers, and that is why most of them did not talk about what they had seen and done. It used to be a pretty good gauge of character, how much or how little people spoke about the most brutal aspects of this subject. The professionals knew what had to be done; the draftees did not. And then, of course, there are always the psychopaths. A lot of the touted heroes come from their ranks.

And after the fact, came the "chicken hawks."

A group of them took over America in recent years.

No one can be prevented from making analogies with "the war on terror," I'm afraid.

At the end of this long thread, given the failures of logic, the left out words, the flawed spellings and composition, it appears almost as if some of the posters have given into fatigue, amnesia, drink, or dope.

Rather like what affects those who have taken part in "the war," whatever war that is.