movie: Flags of our Fathers

Normally, I wouldn't bother with writing about a movie unless it was just mentioning it in passing in my blog, whether I liked it or not, etc., but this time I've just got to say something about this particular movie.

I do not like war movies and I think it's because those in the past have focused more on the gore or the battle rather than the human side -- excluding, of course, Saving Private Ryan and this one.

I realize that this is a good kind of movie for history/war buffs and the only reason I went to see it was because it was my brother's birthday present. He loves all things WWII and then some. He's had the privilege of talking to WWII vets and hearing their stories.

Yes, this movie has the blood and guts, but it also adds the human struggle of being called a hero. What is someone's definition of a hero? Well, that is something only that individual can tell you. All I know is that when I sat there at the end of the movie, after seeing the struggle of the three men who came back to raise money via war bonds for the war, I looked around and realized that almost then entire audience was still sitting there with us. You could have heard a pin drop. The silence was even more powerful than the movie ever will be.

I looked around at the people and came to the logical conclusion that they must be veterans themselves. Oh, maybe not of WWII (it didn't look like any were quite that old), but they had been touched by the horror we call war in some way -- enough to sit there watching the credits roll to the right of photos from Iwo Jima.

My brother said that most of those photos were some he'd never seen before and he has just about every book published about Iwo Jima.

I don't think I will ever forget that moment. It was as if time stood still. You could almost feel the emotion.

This is what war gives us -- survivors who have to live with surviving and what they saw every day. For what? To give us the freedom of simply having the honor of living free.

To all those who may happen upon this blog who've survived a war so that I can sit here typing my thoughts and opinion on this blog -- THANK YOU!