Ken Burns Series The War Begins

Fall TV Must See

The long awaited television series, "The War" by noted documentary film maker Ken Burns premiered this past Sunday Sept. 23rd. The story of the second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four American towns,America's involvement as well as other nations, this series has been anticipated by followers of world history and is an invaluable tool to enlighten the youth of today often times not even able to recount basic American history.

In true Ken Burns fashion the first installment, entitled "The Necessary War" got off to a slow start. Focusing on the effect of pre-war activities in rural American towns like Mobile,Alabama, it set up the eventual 'narrators' of this episode, your average small town American Joe, who figured heavily in the thick of this world tragedy. Many of these young lads joined the service not because of patriotism, nor because of who the U.S. was fighting. It was because, according to one,"they wanted to be something more than the kids they were." The personal accounts of the war are meant to tell the stories of the soldiers who fought it. The American towns chosen for the series, Mobile,Alabama;Sacramento,California;Waterbury,Connecticut, and Luverne, Minnesota.

The episode picked up it's pace as it began to focus on America's entry into the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941. It chronicled well known events like 'the Bataan death march', the exodus of Gen. MacArthur and his family from the Philippines, and the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Poland where over 6 million Jews were killed in one of the worst instances of human massacre ever recorded. The series will also refer to the plight of African-American and Japanese-American citizens who appear to have suffered the worse of American bigotry at this time. As mentioned earlier in the show, the line between good and evil was often blurred by the horrific events of the time.