Unbroken, and why I am sick of war movies.

[The Grand Nudger]

Hurt Locker, Restrepo, Thin Red Line, Blackhawk Down, The Pianist, etc etc etc.

You're -supposed- to be horrified by war...that's what brings the actions of those in the narrative into stark contrast and allows you to place yourself there. To understand, in whatever way possible, the conflicting and often confusing experiences that others in that position have gone through.

If we are going to make movies about war, we should not sugar coat it as all right and all wrong, even if we are on the right side of history. America has not always done the right thing. We owned slaves, we killed off Native Americans, and we held innocent Japanese in prison camps during WW2.

Absolutely right...and yet, even as we did so and often enough by the very same people that did so....war is also a place for unexpected compassion, understanding and moments of heroism that approach the level of myth or legend. Perhaps war doesn't deserve glorification (then again...dem Nazis bro) - but those who have engaged -in it- very often deserve glory - to such an extent and so reliably (on all sides - our enemies are heroic, our enemies are capable of doing "the right thing" in a shitty situation just as well as we are - and no group of us has a record beyond reproach in that regard) that some of that is bound to bleed over into the situation that allowed them the opportunity to achieve it. If the people who have received the MOH, for example, don't deserve glory, then no one does - fuck me...glory might not even exist.....if we can't let them and what they did it for have just a little bit of it.

I guess I've never really seen any sugar coating in war movies..people are getting shot/stabbed/crushed/incinerated/choked/blown into a silky red mist, how sugary is -that-? Are these movies ever really about the glory of some war...as opposed to the glory of those who fought in it?

most of the veterans interviewed are disillusioned and never talk in funny anecdotes as the Americans often do.

Must make for shitty and depressing documentaries. I have plenty of funny anecdotes...you'll rarely hear me tell a "war story". Maybe, just maybe...soldiers use humor to cope with pain? Not sure how you could say that this doesn't have to do with winning or losing - as all of those countries you mentioned lost - alot...even the ones on the "winning" side. In contrast, Americans lost fewer and less..and...you know..we sort of won (US had a little under half a mil in WW2 compared to Germany's 4-5 mil, the Brits were getting the shit bombed out of them -at home-, France is just...France. Elephant in the room here are the Soviets, poor fuckers, 8-13mil). Now, consider the narratives told by Vietnam vets........hmn, a pattern emerges.

Yall want a good war story, stop watching movies. Try a book. Here's one of the best, IMO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Things_They_Carried

"How To Tell a True War Story"...if you never read the book..is still worth a read by itself. You can find it by itself here. Will take a few minutes.
http://cds.library.brown.edu/projects/Wr...e_war.html

How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.