It's Memorial Day weekend ... time for a rewatch of "Band of Brothers."

If you don't get HBO, all 10 episodes are airing back-to-back on AMC beginning Monday at 8 a.m.

Uncensored? I remember one of the main channels airing Saving Private Ryan uncensored during a Memorial Day years ago.

Watching The Pacific instead since I've never seen it.

Be prepared that it is different and darker than BoB

I recently rewatched both series. BoB was fantastic but I still prefer The Pacific. That one connected more emotionally with me. It was much more visceral. This is not to say BoB was without graphic violence but what we see in The Pacific seems so much more personal given the back drop of Pearl Harbor.

The story is disjointed only because of the nature of the Pacific campaign of island hopping. The camaraderie we see among the men of Easy Company is not possible with the individual stories of Robert Leckie, Eugene Sledge, and John Basilone. Sledge's story is a captivating one, going from a kid with a heart murmur and a boyish look to a hardened US Marine who was prepared to kill every last Jap on the face of the planet. And his return home to Mobile, Alabama was impactful on an emotional level, particularly his breakdown at the thought of shooting an unarmed animal while hunting with his father.

I know that a new series is coming eventually, based on Masters of the Air, about the 8th Air Force's bombing campaign over Europe. I absolutely cannot wait to watch that. I also hope that there will eventually be a series about naval operations, probably based in the South Pacific but I'd be okay with something set in the North Atlantic with U-boat wolf packs would be good to tell as well.

Started BoB Thursday night with my son and one of his old friends from high school. It's our 15th year in a row to watch together during the week leading up to Memorial Day. Episodes 4-5 tonight. IMO it is the one of the finest pieces of filmaking ever produced.

I grew to like the Pacific about as much as Band of Brothers. Personal and very interesting to me, from the point of view of my own family. My grandpa (Dad's dad) fought in the European Theater. His little brother by some 6 or 7 years, lied on enlistment papers (he was 17) and ended up in the Pacific Theater. My great uncle was horribly burned and wounded at Guadal Canal. My grandfather (Opa) made it through the european campaign from late 43 thru the end of the war without a scratch. For whatever reason, he was the big war hero back home and little brother just kind of remained in the shadows. My grandpa died the year before I was born. But when attending A&M, I became good friends with my great uncle and would visit him in Victoria often. HIs owns sons were kind of sh*** that didn't pay much attention to him. But I would visit him in the elderly home and I'd bring him books, magazines, snuff, gum, and Aggie memorabilia. He loved the Aggies. His big brother was Class of 41 but his hopes of attending were cut short by the war and his wounds that he would suffer from for life.

I would sit and listen to his stories about the Pacific War. I was fascinated by them and he needed someone to talk to. He died right after I was married in 2000. I still think about that old man, his scars, his missing leg. Memorial Day gets me every time.

I truly reading stories like yours. Thanks for sharing.

Since I have already watched both Band of Brothers and The Pacific recently, today I elected to watch a trio of Pacific theater movies - They Were Expendable and The Sands of Iwo Jima, both old black-and-white movies starring John Wayne. These are a different breed of movie than anything made these days, but they are both worth a watch. Good movies.

The third movie I watched was the more recent version of Midway. I really like this one ( and no, I don't give a crap about CHI complaints) for its accurate representation of the aircraft that participated in that battle, sans the F4F Wildcat. The dive bombing scenes were not terribly accurate, though, but do make for exciting eye candy.

Urban Ag said:

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I grew to like the Pacific about as much as Band of Brothers. Personal and very interesting to me, from the point of view of my own family. My grandpa (Dad's dad) fought in the European Theater. His little brother by some 6 or 7 years, lied on enlistment papers (he was 17) and ended up in the Pacific Theater. My great uncle was horribly burned and wounded at Guadal Canal. My grandfather (Opa) made it through the european campaign from late 43 thru the end of the war without a scratch. For whatever reason, he was the big war hero back home and little brother just kind of remained in the shadows. My grandpa died the year before I was born. But when attending A&M, I became good friends with my great uncle and would visit him in Victoria often. HIs owns sons were kind of sh*** that didn't pay much attention to him. But I would visit him in the elderly home and I'd bring him books, magazines, snuff, gum, and Aggie memorabilia. He loved the Aggies. His big brother was Class of 41 but his hopes of attending were cut short by the war and his wounds that he would suffer from for life.

I would sit and listen to his stories about the Pacific War. I was fascinated by them and he needed someone to talk to. He died right after I was married in 2000. I still think about that old man, his scars, his missing leg. Memorial Day gets me every time.

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you call your grandfather Opa….I call mine the same….who from his side of the family is from Germany???

My Oma was a German citizen and was a child in Germany during WW2….my mother was born in a German hospital post WW2 and her dad was an American soldier….

My mom wore literhosen to kindergarten…..

Just curious if you don't mind sharing the German heritage there….

My Oma would tell stories about how zero food was wasted during the war….she once had the back of her hand stabbed by her brother when she went for the last brawtwurst….

Well episode 9 certainly had the worst of the series. Wow. Great series overall.

jokershady said:

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Urban Ag said:

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I grew to like the Pacific about as much as Band of Brothers. Personal and very interesting to me, from the point of view of my own family. My grandpa (Dad's dad) fought in the European Theater. His little brother by some 6 or 7 years, lied on enlistment papers (he was 17) and ended up in the Pacific Theater. My great uncle was horribly burned and wounded at Guadal Canal. My grandfather (Opa) made it through the european campaign from late 43 thru the end of the war without a scratch. For whatever reason, he was the big war hero back home and little brother just kind of remained in the shadows. My grandpa died the year before I was born. But when attending A&M, I became good friends with my great uncle and would visit him in Victoria often. HIs owns sons were kind of sh*** that didn't pay much attention to him. But I would visit him in the elderly home and I'd bring him books, magazines, snuff, gum, and Aggie memorabilia. He loved the Aggies. His big brother was Class of 41 but his hopes of attending were cut short by the war and his wounds that he would suffer from for life.

I would sit and listen to his stories about the Pacific War. I was fascinated by them and he needed someone to talk to. He died right after I was married in 2000. I still think about that old man, his scars, his missing leg. Memorial Day gets me every time.

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you call your grandfather Opa….I call mine the same….who from his side of the family is from Germany???

My Oma was a German citizen and was a child in Germany during WW2….my mother was born in a German hospital post WW2 and her dad was an American soldier….

My mom wore literhosen to kindergarten…..

Just curious if you don't mind sharing the German heritage there….

My Oma would tell stories about how zero food was wasted during the war….she once had the back of her hand stabbed by her brother when she went for the last brawtwurst….

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Don't mind at all. My big brother was the only one of an eventual 12 grandchildren my grandfather would have, that he actually met. And as a newborn. We referred to him as Opa because that's how my dad would refer to his dad as in "your Opa". My dad, pure German, has always had his grandkids refer to him as "Papa" or "Opa" out of tradition.

My Opa's grandparents were German immigrants, post Civil War, that came to the US via Galveston as children in the 1880's. Opa was born in 1919 and graduated from Texas AMC class of '41. He was the first of our family to go college in the US and the only one of his 12 siblings to go to college. He was originally in the Army Air Corps as a fighter pilot based in California when then war started. Eventually he volunteered for bomber training due to the Air Corps requesting more pilots go bomber due to the heavy losses we took in 42 and 43. He met my grandmother, a 19 year old farm girl, in Walla Walla, WA when he was in bomber training. Boeing built the B17's in Seattle and Everett and the pilots trained in eastern WA east of the Cascades (resembled the rolling hills of western Europe). Grandma got pregnant, Opa was ordered to return to the US and marry her, and then my dad was born in August of 44. My Opa would not meet his first born son until October of 1945 because after the war ended, he got assigned to a command in Germany mainly because he was competent as hell and because he could speak German fluently.

My grandparents both spoke German as they were raised bilingual, not unlike many Latino Americans. But they did not teach their children to speak German due to the association with the Nazis. Relatable in that my in-laws are bilingual but did not teach their children Spanish as they worried (in the 70's and 80's) that their kids would be stereotyped as "Mexicans". It's amazing how many Gen X Latinos and Latinas are not fluent in Spanish because of this.

My dad would not talk about his dad much. The cancer came on fast and he died pretty young. I have had to get most of my info from his sisters. German heritage was certainly part of the culture in South Texas but mostly in regards to food and church. By the time my generation came along, there was honestly little of the German culture left. My dad did tell me one time that his dad said some Burgermeister he had to work with in post war Germany called him out as a traitor to his heritage and he replied "to Texas? To Texas AMC? To America? Not sure your know what being a traitor actually means sir."

My grandmother was German and same...knew German but refused to speak it or teach it to any of the kids or grandkids. She had a wedding picture of one of her relatives still over in Germany, and it had an embossed nazi symbol on it. She was so embarrassed by it that she actually cut it off of the picture.

AJ02 said:

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My grandmother was German and same...knew German but refused to speak it or teach it to any of the kids or grandkids. She had a wedding picture of one of her relatives still over in Germany, and it had an embossed nazi symbol on it. She was so embarrassed by it that she actually cut it off of the picture.

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Great historical reference. Thanks. My aunt (dad's sis) told me her dad (my Opa) told her once that a RAF officer he had to work with would complain about the German Americans even being present during intelligence briefings. And Opa looks at him and says, in a room full of British and American officers, "for the love of Christ limey, we are literally dropping bombs on our relatives, what the F more could you ask of us?"

AJ02 said:

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I wasn't sure, because the guys from the other Battalion looked at him like he was crazy when he did it. Either because it's weird to store a compass in your underwear? Or because he jerry-rigged a compass using a button from his pants? I've never been able to figure it out.

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I always thought it was because Winters smuggled a compass during the practice runs and that was where he hid it. Remember when he told Nixon that he had one and they used it to figure Normandy was the target? So during the actual night, when he lost his stuff, he had to resort to his hidden compass.

My family's heritage includes a lot of German, but that wasn't really a part of my upbringing outside of just an understanding that I had ancestors that had immigrated from Germany to the States in the late 1800s.

I regret that I was never able to discuss the family heritage while my grandparents were alive (I called them Papa and Mema), but at one of their funerals, I recall a discussion about the family at the onset of the war. My great grandparents spoke only German. They lived in the Spring, TX area. There was ostracism they faced from their neighbors due to this. Papa served in the USN in the South Pacific. He harbored a lot of hatred toward the Japanese for the rest of his life (he told me in no uncertain terms that I would never park my Toyota on his property right after I finished at A&M and about a year before he passed).

That actually led to the only conversation I ever had with him regarding the war. Knowing our German heritage, I asked that had I parked a German vehicle in his driveway, and he had gone to Europe rather than the Pacific, would he have had the same hatred of all things German? He said he thought he would have.

Dang, I cannot state how much I miss them.

Finished The Pacific earlier today. Thanks for the recommend, that was incredible.

Episodes 8 and 9 were really hard for me to watch, but so well done