Bruce, I am indeed a conservative, but that's beside the point. Your response is full of bigotry and ignorance. My uncle is a Viet Nam vet and I know directly from him how Hanoi Jane and others treated those soldiers. The actions of the others I named are public record. Murtha accused Marines of "cold-blooded murder and war crimes'' during the Haditha incident and they were cleared. In 1971, Kerry gave sworn testimony to Congress stating that he had witnessed American personnel committing war crimes on an ongoing basis. At no time during his tour of duty did he report any allegation of criminal conduct to military authorities. If he testified truthfully, then he is guilty of, at a minimum, being an accessory after the fact to many war crimes. That is not in any way the conduct of one who served honorably. If he perjured himself, then he is guilty of false witness against those who did serve honorably, and he thus dishonored his own service. So he's either a co-conspirator in war crimes, or backstabbing liar, neither of which is honorable or supports the troops. There's not nearly enough room to discuss the many other ways Kerry has denigrated the troops. When Boxer arrogantly demanded that Brigadier General Walsh refer to her as Senator instead of ma'am, she was too stupid to realize that in the military, ma'am and sir are the proper term of address even for officers. Of course, military people have developed a system for letting an officer know when they don't think too much of them. They use the term of address which least fulfills the requirement of military respect and use only the person's title (e.g., refer to Colonel Smith simply as Colonel). So when Gen. Walsh quickly came back with "Senator" and not "Senator Boxer," soldiers knew he meant she is a substandard person for whom he had no respect! After Senator Durbin read an FBI report that included descriptions of a case at Gitmo in which a detainee was held in such cold temperatures that he shivered, another in which a prisoner was held in heat passing 100 degrees, one in which prisoners were left in isolation so long they fouled themselves and one where a prisoner was chained to the floor and forced to listen to loud rap music, he stated "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings." Under Pol Pot's regime, 1.5 million died in death camps and another 200,000 so-called "enemies of the state" were executed. The Nazis killed 6 million Jews and forced hundreds of thousands into slave labor. Stalin sent 25 million people to labor camps where many were worked to death. Not even close to an accurate comparison since no detainees at Guantanamo Bay had died in custody.

I do agree with one thing you said...Democrats are weak and cowardly.

Well, so far, I have been quite disappointed, but I am an amateur Pacific War historian. I guess trying to do anything with only 10 hours with what was a massive undertaking was impossible, but there were so many other totally heroic people who sacrificed so much and I think they could have been a bit alluded to, if not fleshed out, not to mention many units within the 1st Marine Division that aren't even mentioned who gave all.
By the way; Bruce, stay turned. There are cities and tanks to come. And no, it's not true that if you have seen one Japanese vs American Marine battle ,they are all the same. Far from it; Guadalcanal was a cakewalk compared to other Marine battles to come. In this series, they are taking on Pelelieu and Okinawa, both much different types of battles. They quit doing the banzai charges ala Guadalcanal. In six months of battle on Guadalcanal, less than 1,000 Marines died. On Tarawa a year later, 1,000 died in three days. On Iwo Jimi, in a little over one month, almost 7,000 died.
I do agree with the part of the cook being the in the first
part of the show, but their uniforms should have been almost unrecognizable by that part of the campaign(late October 1942)when they had almost disintegrated from the tropical heat and they should have all been constantly smacking mosquitoes. What I am hoping will come out of this program will be people to become interested and get Robert Leckie's Helmet For My Pillow and Eugene Sledge's With The Old Breed, two excellent books amongst hundreds of others. My father was in the US Navy Sea Bees in the Pacific and I consider anone who was over there or the European or CBI(Cina, Burma, India)a hero.
Semper Fi.

I'm enjoying it, but it's not as good as Band of Brothers. The reason is simple - the war in the pacific is not as dramatic as the war in europe. Yes they're equally brutal and the soldiers are equally brave for having fought there. But from the point of view of making a miniseries like this about it, there's a reason Band of Brothers was entirely about the European Theater, with not a second spent on the war in the Pacific. It's just a bunch of island shootouts. No tanks, no cities, no civilians caught up in the mix.

The most interesting parts of the war in the Pacific are the strategy. Things like the Battle of Midway, the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot... the decisions made by the brass (the decisionmaking of Fletcher vs. Nagumo at Midway, for example) are the most interesting, captivating things about the Pacific theater.

It's just hard to get too involved with random soldiers shooting and getting shot at on random islands beyond hoping they live (and we know Leckie, Basione, etc live because they're based on characters who lived and talk to us at the beginning of each episode). Most people don't know their history, and more people can tell you why we invaded Europe than why we tried to take Guadalcanal, Midway, Tarawa, Tinian, etc.

Moreover, I fear that, from an entertainment standpoint, if you've seen one USA v. Japan pacific island battle, you've seen them all.

I think it might have been more interesting to have people like Adms. Nimitz, Fletcher, Nagumo, Yamamoto, and some other navy commanders on both sides be the "stars" of the miniseries. It would be more interesting I think. But we're only two episodes in, and we're now leaving Guadalcanal, so maybe it will get more interesting.

So far BoB is definitely better, but anyone who says the Pacific is a horrible failure is just nuts. It's very well done thus far. I just think the problem is the subject matter... again no disrespect to the troops who sacrificed so much fighting there.

One more thought: would have been cool to have Robert Oppenheimer be one of the characters as we watch him and his team develop and test the A-Bomb during the course of the miniseries, with the ultimate dropping of the bombs on Japan to end the war. That's a helluva innarestin' story right there, and Oppenheimer is a great character.

The problem with 'The Pacific' is the inevitable comparisons to 'Band of Brothers', which was one of the finest mini-series ever.

So far, The Pacific hasn't done it for me. But I will hang in there. Hope that it gets better.

@Jason: I'm not sure if a flashback would have done the Marines justice. The way the episode played out, the viewer is as surprised and astonished as are the Marines when they hear their battles are front-page news. Up until that point, weren't we, along with the Marines, beginning to question both the purpose and price being for holding a tiny speck of an island in the South Pacific?

Hi,
Your blog was good summary. I too have been a bit disappointed so far , just can't seem to get a sense of where it is all going? the battle scenes are intense for sure but I am having hard time saying I am really getting into it. I agree if they would've had the cook on in the beginning, we would have been able to pull the footage together and tie it to that pivotal scene better. It would have impacted the viewers more. They kept saying we were going to get under the helmet of the soldier well we are waiting for that aren't we.

Pretty sure Eugene's heart murmur isn't gone, but he's enlisting anyway.