For those that are following "The War", and after talking with my own kids after the first episode, I am compelled to add some comments, especially for our younger people who may not have had those times embedded in their early family life. I have no delusions of supplementing Ken Burns but I can add recollections that I just have a need to babble out at the moment. Perhaps my mothers waning days has stirred some reminiscence for me.

I had to provide one unexplained point in the series to my kids as to why the movie houses of each town was emphasized and the 'Movie Tone' clips included was the only source for pictures of what was happening in the rest of the world. Other than poor quality news paper pics and few quality stills in magazines, the weekly news reels at the local theater was the equivalent of the nightly TV news. Most all information about your loved ones that you knew was in harms way, came through letters that were weeks in transit. Words came threw the radio and the visuals came with news papers and in 3-5 minutes clips at the movie house. Media and communication was at a very different era.

One of those freeze-flash memories of a very little boy is standing atop the toilet seat and having my hair combed after a scrubbing and being dressed up because my father was going to make a long distance call from Texas before heading for Japan. I have no idea how old I was or of the phone call, but I remember it was important and exciting for the family.

I know that war was not a background thought for anybody on the home front. It was an all day, every day part of life. My mother worked in a defense plant while my dad was gone and I recall old ration stamps being in the corners of many things for years after the war. The uniforms and olive drab gear that floated the attic and closets and basements of my home and my uncles homes, the Lugers and sabers that were locked away and only brought out when the adults talked, was just part of every home, ..............wasn't it?

My entire civilian life has been working in an industrial city that now is taking it's last gasps, but spent my career involved with many small companies and learning under the tutelage of veterans or the people that didn't go but became part of the defense machine, almost without exception. Few companies were not involved with super-human production of war supplies. Only now am I aware of the gradual disappearance of the tangible equipment and verbal environment that just became a subconscious part of me.

I have one of my earliest pics that was taken with rationed film. LOL

Yes. It was.

And still had your full ration of hair? lol

I remember Ken Burns saying months ago, while he was still editing material for the film, that the main thing he saw different today from then was how the "Home Front" mentality prevailed during WWII. Over a decade had passed from V-J day to the day I was born, so the War was not even the latest entry into the history books at school for me...but as I grew & learned, I caught many glimpses into how that time had left its mark on the family that raised me. My mother had many pics of herself & others from that time, & I see in them a beautiful young woman, in her prime & with flaming red hair that surely broke some hearts, trying to find a life for herself, but there's a barely concealed anguish in her eyes, knowing that she dare not get too close, too deeply in love, with these dashing young men in their uniforms...the knowledge that they could go & never come back seems like a barrier to everything she may have wanted in life.

I've caught the first 2 episodes. And my one thought is do we have the infrastructure today in maufacturing to be able to unite against such attacks? It seems like we import so much that was made with foreign hands. Should we bring some of that back to our country? Has NAPTHA (?) really benefitted America?

Tonight was some saddly enlightning facts. :(

Ty for this thread... I saw it at apx 7:45pm the first night and the show was to start at 8pm. I quick called my almost 85 yr old Dad and told him about it. I said it may not be any good but you may want to check it out. We have watched it "together" (he lives about 200 miles from me) every night. And he's called in the morning to reminiscence. He said "that fella (Ken Burns) did a pretty good job, lots of background facts." lol. Its brought back alot of memories (good & bad) for him. Wish I could be with him tonight for 'D-Day'.

Yes, but has jseal stopped bombing Darwin yet?

The bombing will continue until moral improves! :ranting:

Define improvement.

Oldfart,

Dang! You do know how to ask the hard questions!

It takes practice. 'Gnite.

I cried when Babe's family got "the telegram".

Can not imagine what that would be like.

So did they :(

My dad was a musician in the Army, I believe, and was stationed in India during the War. My stepfather was in the Navy.

A small aside, here. My mother and stepfather dated in high school in Colorado. Then, he joined the Navy. In 1971, he finally found my mother, after hunting for her for years. They got married in 1972.

My daddy had already been a soldier for about a dozen years when Pearl was attacked, in fact, he had been stationed there in 1930 during an early tour of duty (& learned to body surf there...always a tough mental image for me to get my head around!) He was in the Army Air Corps, Quartermaster (Supply), so he never had to be anywhere in any direct line of fire (lucky for me, I suppose, or I might not have been)...I do know he served in Peru, New Guinea, & several other locales in the South Pacific.