Why I Won't be Watching "The War"

Ken Burn's long awaited epic documentary on World War 2 airs tonight on PBS, but Jules Crittenden's review settles it for me:

“The War” is a death-obsessed dirge, dwelling on the ugliest parts of war, more interested in folly than success. Even extraordinary heroism gets short shrift. “The War” is about the meat grinder and the dutiful submission of good citizens to their fate. Victory is presented as an almost foregone conclusion, threatened only by the foolish mistakes of generals. Victory is only a death-ridden slog away, as long as Americans are willing to make that slog, despite their leaders’ shortcomings. The brief references to those leaders, their maneuvers and deceptions, their calculations and adjustments in strategy, are just a backdrop to the common man’s tale … which in “The War’’ fails to include the contributions of thousands upon thousands who toiled in other places than the factories and the front lines to which Burns limits his view.

When I think of WW 2, I think of the heroes, from Jimmy Doolittle, Audie Murphy, Douglas MacArthur, to Patton, plus the great battles of Alamein, the Battle of Britain, and the Normandy Invasion, all of which made the world safe for Democracy. Today's revisionists historians, and most of your school textbooks, like to focus only on the mistakes made, especially the Racism. In fact, the war destroyed racism as we know it.