(E07) "Fear and Filth" - written by Eugene Sledge while on Peleliu in description of his experience there

This week, I finally saw the value of the opening narrative with Tom Hanks interspersed with interviews with the World War II veterans. They're presented to offer background information for the events to come. Most of us have never seen anything like the war in the Pacific, so we wouldn't know about things like the intricate tunnels the Japanese used on Peleliu.

(E06) Part two of what I'm going to call the 'Peleliu Trilogy' offered more of what we saw with 'Peleliu Landing,' and then some. This extended look at one island campaign is to show us just how intense and long these boys were fighting for this one chunk of land, and how intense the fighting got.

(E05) Another week and another wholly different experience in the Pacific front of World War II. Whereas Guadalcanal was an island oasis, and eerily quiet when the 1st Marines landed, the island of Peleliu was a far different story. From an ocean of cannon-fire and ships to a sea of the dead, dying and injured on the beach, it was warfare from the word "Go!"

Eugene Sledge finally made it into the war, joining Leckie and company in the 1st Marines Division. He hooked up with them on the island of Pavuvu, where we left them last week. Leckie returned as well from his stay at the hospital, and they got to enjoy some wartime camaraderie before shipping out.

Sledge even got some time with his friend from back home, Sid Phillips. The care in which the producers of 'The Pacific' have given to each of these very different wartime experiences has helped to create one of the most diverse and thorough looks at war that I've ever seen.

(E04) While we were celebrating Easter, the boys in 'The Pacific' were ringing in Christmas and 1944 in somewhat less than optimal conditions. We got a brief glimpse of Eugene Sledge, finally in the marines and screwing up in training. But his story is yet to come.

With Basilone off selling war bonds and banging bar blondes, and Sledge learning the difference between "Bob" and "Tojo," it was Robert Leckie and the 1st Marines tours of duty that took center stage. And through these venues, and this Division, the writers and producers were able to showcase the psychological toll that war can have on battle-beaten soldiers.

Leckie was pretty strained already going into their tour on Gloucester, after his disastrous love affair on Melbourne. He was also on the outs with Lt. Larkin, which certainly didn't help matters on the ground.

(E02) After watching this second installment of 'The Pacific,' I think I have a feeling why people who've seen further along are talking about how things pick up once we get into the next episode. With these first two parts, we spent virtually the entire time on Guadalcanal, and there was virtually no time for any sort of character connections.

After this, the 1st Marines are finally getting off the island to move onto their next campaign, which means a change of scenery, and a chance for the impact of what they've just gone through to start hitting both the marines themselves, and the audience. Just like them, we've had virtually no time to process all the horror and warfare these men endured on the island.

While last week spotlighted most of the hour on the beauty of the island, this week it was the brutality of war itself that took center stage, with almost constant gunfire from the opening credits to the closing credits.

'The Pacific,' HBO's monumental 10-part miniseries produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, chronicles four Marines as they serve in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.

Unlike its companion miniseries, 'Band of Brothers,' which followed the legendary Easy Company throughout the war in Europe, 'The Pacific' focuses more on the individual perspectives of four Marines -- Pvts. Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale) and Sidney Phillips (Ashton Holmes) in the 1st Marine Regiment; Sgt. John Basilone (Jon Seda) in the 7th Marine Regiment; and Phillips' best friend, Pvt. Eugene Sledge (Joseph Mazzello), in the 5th Marine Regiment -- as they struggle to keep their spirits high while fighting an unrelenting enemy -- the Japanese.

AOL TV had the honor of speaking to 85-year-old WWII veteran Dr. Sidney Phillips, the only one still with us (Basilone was fatally wounded at Iwo Jima, and Leckie and Sledge, both of whom wrote memoirs on which 'The Pacific' is based, both passed away in 2001). Phillips tells us what it felt like to see his war-time experiences and those of his best friend Sledge depicted on screen.

Read the interview after the jump