Last night I watched the final episode of television’s “Masters of the Air.” Hard to go wrong with Spielberg and Hanks in charge. I admired the cinematography and marveled at the amount of damage those B-17s could take and the courage of the men who flew them. I was born during that war, and although I was too young to know what was going on, I’ve always felt a special attraction to WWII movies and documentaries. This one was pretty good, especially considering it was not a Hollywood movie but a made-for-tv production.
The one thing that spoiled the series for me, very briefly, were the two times someone said “verse,” as in (and I paraphrase) “Yankees verse Cubs” and “shirts verse skins.” As I’ve noted before, the correct word here is versus, not verse. Both times I almost fired off a nastygram to Hanks and Spielberg. Those guys should know better.
But missteps aside, by the time the final episode progressed to the liberation of the prison camp, I was a complete mess with goosebumps, a lump in my throat, and tears in my eyes.
Then came a scene with the same B-17s dropping food in the German-occupied, famine-stricken Netherlands — and it was hauntingly reminiscent of recent air drops in Gaza.
The series-ending voiceover:
“On occasion, the world must confront itself —
answer what we are with who we are.”
And suddenly the tears were not for the World War II story but for today’s world. They were for the mess at our southern border, the political sectarianism that is fracturing this nation, the horror that Israel continues to inflict on Gaza, the Ukrainians’ struggle to defend against Putin’s invaders, our broken promise of massive support to Ukraine … and the politicians in Washington who continue to fiddle while we and the world burn.
Today, as in World War II, we must answer what we are with who we are.
_________________
Featured image: A B-17 Flying Fortress. From a “Masters of the Air” publicity shot
The Italians have the best word for this, Colorado: magari …
I had to look it up, and now I’ve got to remember it. Great word!
I watched it too and agree with your take on it. I hope you watched the addendum after the movie where it explained what happened to the actual characters of the “Bloody 100th” who survived the war. It really was the “Greatest Generation.” These were smart people who understood very well the risk they were taking and the reason for it, but they did it anyway.
Yes, I watched the bios at the end. Remarkable men. We are so indebted. My dad was a member of the Greatest Generation but didn’t serve overseas. He was a doctor, an ob-gyn, so was assigned stateside to head the Army hospital in Carlisle Barracks, PA. (Of course, war aside, he will always be the Greatest of the Greatest Generation to me.)
I watched Masters of the Air too. Your points are very well made. I also have been reflecting on this war and the current situation in the nation/world. My father was in the Army Air Corp and serviced those B-17 planes in the North Africa campaign; I loved the episode that featured the mechanics on the ground that kept making the planes flightworthy: that was my dad! While my father was serving in Africa my mother was here at home serving as a Red Cross nurse in the polio epidemics. They met at a hospital in Albuquerque as he recovered from service-related health issues and she prepared for a polio outbreak that never took off in New Mexico.
So, here’s my thought. I was raised in a time when some things were simply no brainers: Nazis were bad, and vaccines were life-saving modern medicine. How things have changed…
Bless your dad and all the men and perhaps women who kept those planes in the air. What a difference they made!
Things have indeed changed and I don’t really understand why. I was going to speculate that the younger generations just weren’t close enough to those war years, the polio years, etc., and then I remembered who’s running for president this year …
Things have really changed. I do think that people have forgotten the 50s as they voice a desire to return to them. It is a huge disconnect. My family has always served the nation and our communities. My dad was the crew chief on a B52 flight line during the Cuban missile crisis. My mother continued to work as a nurse, and I became a teacher while my sister entered the civil service. Now I hear people like my family, made of members who honor their oath to the constitution and value the principles on which our nation was founded, called the Deep State. Huge shift.
Hey, my sister was an editor too!! She worked with those technical manuals that are used everywhere in the military! You need to stop the engines of an aircraft carrier? There is a manual for that! You need to turn on the radar? Yep. She probably did the editing work on that manual…
Oh, B-52 rang bell. My older brother was a B-47 pilot with SAC in the ’50s. He was out before the Cuban missile crisis, but I was certainly on edge then, living only about 30 miles north of Tinker AFB and, according to the compass circles I drew on a map, still just within reach of those missiles. And now my grandson is currently a Marine based at Pendleton.
Hey, next time I need to bring a carrier to a screeching halt, I’ll reach for that manual your sis edited. I’m sure it will be more useful than those people currently in DC. (Correction: Not currently in Washington. They just left for another 2-week break! Still without approving the additional aid for Ukraine.)
I went on a tour of an aircraft carrier in San Diego (the Midway) and there were these racks of manuals chained to a bar in the area of the operations center and I thought… my sister did those! They need those manuals as in action you never know who is going to working at any given battle station if the ship takes damage. Kind of amazing, right? 😊
I remember the missile crisis well. We all had to get timed to see how fast we could get home, and then you got a different color ribbon to wear on your wrist. Children who could run home fast enough could leave if there was a launch, and the rest had to stay at school to shelter there. I got home in under 10 minutes, so I had a green ribbon. What a horrible time that was! This was San Bernardino and my dad had to stay at Norton AFB so only my mom was home.
Yeah, the congress is a huge embarrassment to the nation. It has become clear that for too many of them it is just political theater, and they aren’t really all that interested in governing and solving problems. It is so much easier to break things and then point fingers, isn’t it. I’m especially upset about the Ukraine funding. It’s like they aren’t interested in being in NATO or preventing widespread war in Europe. My parents would like to have a word with them, if only they could…
We promised aid to Ukraine. And the last aid we sent ran out last fall. Last fall! Those people have continued to fight and die, with diminishing resources, since then. Their blood is on the hands of the US Congress right now. And if Ukraine capitulates, or if a single US soldier ends up having to fight in Europe, our Congress will bear the blame. Congress takes a vacation while Ukrainians are dying. It’s immoral.
My thinking is, as it has been for many years, that we lock all those “public servants” in a room together and feed them only bread and water until they have legislation ready for the President to sign.
I’m pretty sure that Russia (Putin) is involved in the reluctance of certain congress people to fund Ukraine. I was horrified to hear that the last huge attack on Ukraine was on the power grid and caused Poland to activate aircraft. This will not end well.
I also regard this as immoral.
I do worry about the Russians attacking Ukraine’s big nuclear power plant. I’m surprised they’re stupid enough to do that and endanger themselves and whatever other nations are downwind of that plant. Maybe the big Moscow theater attack will distract them from Ukraine.
I also don’t doubt that, given how money talks, there are probably a lot of rubles talking in DC, along with a lot of other currencies both foreign and domestic.
I heard a report that a taking down the power grid would compromise essential components of the nuclear power plant, like, maybe the cooling? Anyway, this is pretty risky behavior by the Russians; the consequences could be severe.
Oh, absolutely. No electricity for the pumps to run the cooling = BOOM! I was married briefly to a nuclear engineer working in upstate NY. He used to laugh about how the “nuke factory” itself was hardened to withstand the impact of a 747. But if the bad guys went just a few miles down the road and took out the power lines, the entire power grid would fail. Russia apparently realizes that if power to that Ukrainian plant goes out, the pumps stop, and the wind shifts just so …