The Retrospect of Saving Private Ryan
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Suffice it to say that I should have been a better enlisted man during my hitch in the Navy.
When you're "in the moment" it's a difficult matter to extrapolate how those evolving attitudes and feelings which arise with age will end up making you feel.
It stems from a time in my childhood when "Combat" the television series appeared in my life too much and sent me in to this apocalyptic bent whereby I became afraid that the world was going to end in some great world war or something.
It wasn't until the Aliens franchise that I really warmed up to the notion of soldiers and military film noir but that allure was in reality something else altogether ...
On this day in 1998 Saving Private Ryan, the epic WW2 Spielberg flick was released to theaters.
It gave me my first realistic notion of what that conflict entailed and though the innumerable tragedies and sometimes infuriating plot elements would stick with me over the years ...
I was glad to have sat through what was really not my cup of tea as it were.
A work of fiction, based on historical elements I was touched by the entirety of this combat opus and the sacrifice of our military as portrayed so movingly by the cast.
The chain of command was never so inspiring in my lifetime.