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My father in law, Vasily, grew up in Russia. During WW II, the Germans were sweeping across some rural areas and just slaughtering everybody - men, women, children. Vasily was 6 years old; a German soldier walked up to him with a pistol in his hand, and then saw that Vasily had a lighter colored hair and blue eyes. Pure chance, a random DNA thing. But because of those Aryan-like features, instead of shooting him, he gave him an orange. The rest of his life, he had a special appreciation for eating oranges.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

Mxrdad wrote:Watched it Sunday night, quite intense battle scenes. It is a great movie and a nail biter for sure. It was great to see him (and others) in the "Credits" at the end of the movie. Its really sad we are losing all of our beloved Vets that fought in that era. I wish they could show these movies in High school; that would make History a lot more interesting and maybe give the kids a better idea of what our Vets went through. I know a 2 hour movie is scratching the surface but still.....

That's a great idea, much better than reading a couple of paragraphs in a history book. I fear, however, that snowflakes would protest at the school board meetings because they didn't use enough blacks and hispanics.....

In any case, I would include "Stalingrad." What we went through pales in comparison.

I have mixed feelings. The movie was excellent, and realistic. The intensity of the Pacific campaign was certain unimaginable, no question about it, and the realism of this movie exceeded that of Saving Private Ryan. Like some others, I was exhausted when it was over. I haven't felt this way after a war movie since seeing Blackhawk Down.

Doss's heroism was certainly beyond reproach, and he deserved the Medal of Honor. No argument there.

But some profound questions linger:

I would ask him, "Private Doss, what would you say to the mothers of the soldiers who died horrible deaths when they were killed by the Japanese soldiers you didn't kill, even though you easily could have?" Given the intensity of those battles, I think it's a virtual certainty that in this manner, Doss indirectly caused a significant number of American casualties.

We saw how devoted Doss was to his wife.

"Private Doss, if you saw someone raising his gun to kill your wife, and you had a gun there next to you, would you grab that gun and save her, or would you just sit there and watch her be murdered?"

"Oh, you'd save her, you say? But allowing enemy soldiers to kill your buddies on the battlefield is OK? Their lives aren't as important?"

You see my point. Again, great movie, strongly reccommended, but it left me with some deep thoughts.