Inconvenient Truth: Band of Brothers

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be never so vile. This day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.” ~ William Shakespeare in Henry V



This spring break I had nothing to do. My friends had all jet-setted off to Florida, Hawaii, or the Caribbean. I was stuck, in Northbrook, with my dog.

On Monday night, I started rummaging through our dvd collection and came across Band of Brothers, an HBO miniseries about a parachute infantry company during World War II. My dad always says that it's the best thing that has ever been on television...

I put it in.

Over the course of the week, I watched all ten episodes. They were filled with victory and loss, death and life, elation and devastation. It was captivating. It was real. My dad was right.

In the episode where the company is fighting at the Battle of the Bulge, one of the main characters says that in a different time, the men he is fighting against and putting all of his energy into destroying, might have been his friends. Maybe they like to hunt, and he likes to fish. He finally realizes that the men he is fighting are not the most terrible people on the face of the earth. They're not evil; they're not malicious. Just like him, they're trying to do their jobs and get home to their wives and children.

It's like there is some light bulb that clicks into everyone's head, even civilians, when there's a war. They are the enemy. They must die. Whoever they are, be it the Germans, the Soviets, the Vietnamese, or the Iraqis, we are against all of them. They're all the same. They are all bad.

But who is it really that we hate? Who's the bad guy? It's their government, their leaders, who, ironically enough, are quite often oppressing their own people to the point that they hate them too. So then why do we hate them all? Why do we channel all of our agression towards people who either have nothing to do with politics whatsoever, or hate their leaders as much as we do?

Furthermore, it's the leaders who are making all of this conflict. Why don't they fight themselves, instead of sending innocent people out to die for a cause they barely even understand or care about?