jagdriver wrote:
 
Good movie. Lee Marvin, Mark Hamell. Written by Samuel Fuller.

 Proclivities wrote: 
Wasn't this the Big Red One? Or am I thinking of another unit?

 2cats wrote:  Being a prisoner has got to be near the worst, if not THE worst. It's impossible to imagine, frankly: there's just no frame of reference in our (civilian) experience.

 Coaxial wrote: 
Having been shot down, my Dad was in a German POW camp on June 6, 1944. He also said he was scared shitless.

 Proclivities wrote:
Had an uncle there...He went from Corporal to Second Lieutenant in one day via battlefield commissions. He always scared me to death.

 DaveInVA wrote: 
My dad was in the Third Army during the war.  They were not at the initial Normandy landings but they were deeply engaged in The Battle of the Bulge several months later.  He wasn't eager to discuss it very often either, but he would talk about General Patton every now and then.

 cc_rider wrote: 
My Dad was on the USS Altamaha, a repurposed merchant marine ship that as done up in a hurry as an Escort Carrier after Pearl Harbor. My Dad never talked about it either. but he kept some of the ships logs and one mentions them seeing torpedo trails heading towards the ship but they all missed.

 cc_rider wrote: 
My Dad was on the first plane into Tokyo after Nagasaki. He said they were all scared shitless.

 cc_rider wrote: 

Don't know if you saw the Ken Burns WWII documentary, but one story this one veteran was telling about how one night, the cans went off and they were braced and fired to ward off another horrible night Banzai attack. When the sun came up they were horrified to see dead and wounded civilians, women and children strewn all over the place. They had to tend to the wounded and bury the dead by their own hands. I cannot even begin to imagine the horror.

 cc_rider wrote: 
They don't make them like him any more.

 DaveInVA wrote:  My grandfather served on the USS Boise, which earned eleven battle stars during the War. He never really talked about it, which probably says more than words could.

 mzpro5 wrote:
  I remember an interview with Eddie Arnold (Green Acres) regarding his service at Tarawa (Pacific island). I think it was before SPR came out, but when I saw the movie, my first thought was that interview with Eddie Arnold. Same situation, same horrors.

 DaveInVA wrote: 
Like the Battle of Midway? Wake Island? Fending off kamikaze attacks?

Yeah, not a barrel of monkeys, to be sure. 

 jagdriver wrote: 
I'm sure my Dad had a few hairy moments on his Navy aircraft carrier in the Pacific...

 jagdriver wrote: 

I was just thinking the same thing.

 Coaxial wrote: 
As are the experiences of the island-hoping Marines in the Pacific.

 mzpro5 wrote: 
I'd heard that. Still can't even compare to watching the door drop on the LST and you are suddenly walking across bodies as your life replays itself in your head. Beyond my comprehension.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
But imagine if we had real 3D with peripheral vision.... more of a virtual reality experience....

 jagdriver wrote: 
The beginning of the film Saving Private Ryan is as close as anyone who wasn't there is likely to get, and I'm certain it's a damn poor illustration of the reality.

 jagdriver wrote: 



It has become a bit of a cliche but the first 15-20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan is about as close as anyone that was not there can get to knowing what it was like.