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Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! March 12, 2010 The PacificstsBy Greyhawk"I received my commission when I graduated Tufts in 1937," recalled Bill Hawkins, years later. "Shortly after this I went to work teaching Latin and English at the Milford Academy, located between Bridgeport and New Haven in Connecticut." Not very exciting - but I get the impression he didn't think the job would last: "This was the period when Hitler was trying to grab everything that wasn't nailed down. By the time he reached Poland, Great Britain and France said no more and, bang, we had World War II. I knew it was just a matter of time before they'd start calling up the reserves and I was right. My turn came in December, 1940, one year before the Pearl Harbor attack." I'm quoting Captain Hawkins from a book I pulled off the shelf here at home this morning. It's a paperback I've had long enough to have forgotten how long I've had it or where I got it, but in all that time I've never forgotten it. It's an oral history built on interviews with Marines who served in the Pacific during World War II - Bill Hawkins is but one of many. He thought he knew what he was in for, but as his next words will reveal, his vision was flawed. "The funny thing about the period was that none of us thought about fighting the Japanese. Nazi Germany - that was the big menace. We'd been told all about Belleau Wood, Soissons, Mont Blanc, all those big fights from World War I. Most of us just didn't think about Japan." Let's jump forward to today. The event that prompted me to grab a yellowing and well-creased paperback from my shelf was the arrival of an email containing a link to this online Time magazine story - an oral history of Tom Hanks, as related by the subject to historian Douglas Brinkley and published with the title "How Tom Hanks Became America's Historian in Chief."
The Pacific, Hanks' 10-hour HBO miniseries about the Pacific theater in World War II begins on March 14th. I'm looking forward to it.
So it's history connected to now. But the Time story is about Tom Hanks - and how he became America's Historian in Chief.
For most folks history is best consumed in small doses, which is why the miniseries is an effective manner of presentation. And you've arrived at the end of part one of this one. Next entry in the series here. More Mudville entries on The Pacific here. Posted by Greyhawk / March 12, 2010 1:15 PM | Permalink TrackBackTrackBack URL: http://www.mudvillegazette.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/17477 2 CommentsLeave a comment |
July 19, 2010Dawn Patrol 07/19/2010 [Greyhawk]
Welcome to the Dawn Patrol, our ongoing roundup of information on war and other topics - from the MilBlogs and other sources around the world.
Always updating - refresh for updates.
AFGHANISTANProspects for stability in Musa Qala: challenges and possible solutions -- [Bill Ardolino /Long War Journal - in Afghanistan] Exploding Culverts -- [Kandahar Diary - in Afghanistan] Arbaki -- [Free Range International - in Afghanistan] Weather -- [A Major's Perspective - in Afghanistan] Fête Nationale -- [Field Notes: One Soldier's Perspective - in Afghanistan] Goodbye "FaST" Food (and good riddance) -- [FaST Surgeon - in Afghanistan] IRAQOn The Iran, Iraq Border -- [J.D. Johannes - in Iraq] WAR ON TERROR /TERRORISMSenators Look For Smoking Gun In BP-Lockerbie Link -- [AP] No Link Between BP And Lockerbie Release: UK Envoy -- [NPR news blog] UK's Cameron: Releasing Lockerbie Bomber Was Wrong -- [AP] U.S. AND OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLDAs Cameron and Obama Meet, BP Will Be Top Issue -- [NY Times] Afghanistan tops agenda for British PM's visit -- [Washington Times] WELCOME HOMEHomecoming -- [Rajiv Srinivasan - home from Afghanistan] STRATEGY & TACTICSISAF, SCR Address Military ROE and Tactical Directives -- [ISAF] SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYRaytheon's pain gun finally gets deployed in Afghanistan (update: recalled) -- [Engadget] Pain Ray Recalled From Afghanistan -- [Noah Shachtman/Danger Room] The Active Denial System: the weapon that's a hot topic -- [The Telegraph (UK)] World's Fastest Helicopter Boosts Battle Against Insurgents -- [ISAF]
POLITICSIs it time for a real GI Jane? -- [CNN] HUMOR/SATIRE(Need more? Dawn Patrols Archives are here.) Iraq, Afghanistan, War, Terrorism, Military, Politics, Media, MilBlogs, dawn patrol Mudville |
The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
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Greyhawk - hard to rationalize your apparent drooling over the 'Pacific' miniseries, when your own words (correctly) categorize Tom Hanks as the ignorant moron that he so famously is. Perhaps you need to revisit your own comments and try to straighten out obvious contradictions.
Hanks is no authority on anything except his own useless life.
Okay, "I'm looking forward to it" is what I said. I haven't seen it yet, it could be awful, I've sure got concerns, but I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Pacific theater.
Meanwhile I'm going to do what I can to set the record straight on what's wrong about that Tom Hanks interview. This was part one, in which I introduced a key quote regarding pre-war American perceptions of Germany and Japan. I think the fault with that published interview lies more with Brinkley (and that really disappoints me) and Time than Hanks - but I haven't gotten to the details of that yet.
But my part of the discussion will be more about the War in the Pacific and the men who fought it than about Tom Hanks or his hairstyles.