>I have several posts backing up but I just started a new job – same company, new job – and have been swamped with training and doing. So things might be, and have been, a little slim around here – excluding me, of course. So I am rationing my time a bit more these days.
And speaking of rationing…
I have watched a bit of Ken Burns’ The War. Although it isn’t the final word on WWII, and not without its controversy, I find it quite powerful. Even though I hate war, and I find the current Iraq war to be wrong on so many levels, I still get choked up over stories of WWII, and especially ones like those on which Burns focuses, namely, the very human drama of suffering, loss, and true heroics born out of profound fear and deeply felt necessity.
I was also struck by a statement that Burns recently made in an interview with John Stewart that there is no such thing as a good war. That all war is bad, and that he hopes his film will provide some perspective. Certainly I can say my suffering is minuscule compared to those who struggle(d) to live through war. Any thoughts?
Here are some thoughts on the topic from Bill Moyers.
pilgrimakimbo 
>We have been watching the War series on PBS these last two weeks and I must say I fully agree. Mr. Burns has a way of finding the most human of the drama of war and bringing it directly into your home. I still believe on some level that there is a greater good to war itself but after what I’ve watched in this series and heard on NPR in regards to the current war I think I would agree with Mr. Burns that on a human level there are no good wars.
>Thanks for your comments Summer. I know that some wars may be more justified than others, at least from one side. But The War just makes it so clear how awfull even a so called “good war” is that it’s hard to see any war as other than the result of gigantic human failings. At the same time I have so much admiration and awe for those regular people who decided they wanted to rid the world of fascism and were willing to do the things they did, that I find myself both repulsed and compelled at the same time. I hate war, but I secretly sometimes wish I could have fought in WWII. Thanks for stopping by.
>you sound like my husband and I…sometimes I guess I long for the simplicity of a singular purpose that I would imagine fighting in WWII would give you. But then watching The War I realize how romanticized the version in my head is. Seeing the interviews with the survivors today, the pain and stoic anguish that clearly fills their eyes brings me right back to the reality of how brutal war truly is. You are so right that it is a result of gigantic human failing but I like to hope that if there ever were a war worth fighting I would be there…although I think I’d have to be a medic as I can’t imagine any cause worth taking another life.