….so it looks like I have to “rehabilitate” a pair of pants and a shirt from my travel bag in order to get out and get some business done. Caught up on “The Pacific” last night. I think it was, all in all, tremendous save some of the more soap opera-like aspects. But you know what? There is love and longing and romance during wartime so what am I crying about. Episode 9, Okinawa, was unbelievably powerful. The fact that it was the Japanese homeland with civilians pouring back behind the Marine lines, anyone of whom might have a weapon or hand grenade, the fact that the Japanese army used some of those same people as human shields…in some cases strapping explosives to them…made Okinawa and Saipan particularly horrifying. The filmakers brought all of that to life and it was an ass-kicking for the viewer. Tough, dramatic and truthful. A note: American forces in the Pacific during the Second World War have come in for some revisionist criticism by people who believe all war is bad and no one army is better than another. Fuck those people for their politicking and propagandizing. The Americans gave as they realized they were getting. The Imperial army believed American soldiers and Marines could be dealt with by simply scaring them to death. They mutilated American dead and tortured American prisoners. This, the Japanese believed, would be ample message for the “soft” Americans. It’s a mistake repeated over and over again by despotic regimes ignorant of culture. Unfortumately for the Japanese, the American military responded with fury to these tactics and the result was the Japanese fighter shown no mercy. There is a vast difference between a military dictatorships acts of brutality and criminality and the army of a demoracy avenging and defending itself. Anyway…damn good TV “The Pacific.” 
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