War Within and War Without

Last night we watched two very different movies, though both were of the true story variety, from our most current NetFlix collection. "Saints and Soldiers" was about a very small group of WWII soldiers (there were four out of a total group of around 70) who escaped from the Malmedy crossroads massacre by the Nazi's in or near Belgium. It was the story of how these four, plus the Brit RAF pilot they picked up on the way, made the 20 mile journey through the dead of winter cross country behind enemy lines toward their nearest American unit. Any war movie you watch, if it's remotely well done, just reinforces the pointless, human waste of war in general. This was no exception. Nevertheless, it was a story that needed to be told.


We were talking when it was over about how we are all so focused on what is happening within our own provincial "worlds", it's way too easy to forget not just what went on before but what is going on just a few thousand miles away today.

Then we watched "To End All Wars", which just happened to also be about WWII but took place in the Pacific theater in a Japanese prisoner camp where the prisoners were forced to build "the railroad of death". Again, you have to wonder how people live the rest of their lives with those kinds of memories. How do you lead any semblance of a normal life? Very interesting to see what a human will resort to when pushed up to and over the edge. I'm quite confident I would not have survived that particular scenario.

I don't know how I ended up with both of those at the same time and now I have something called, "The More The Merrier", poor planning I guess. I'm just glad Netflix has so much variety and choice. We don't have time to watch movies right now considering we're leaving in less than a week for vacation anyway. Regardless, I always know when a movie was worth the time when I can't get it out of my mind. That's been the case with both of these. Knowing they were portrayals of actual events makes them very hard to take.

Man's inhumanity to man, we never seem to graduate to the next level above that; the cruelty seems barely hidden beneath the surface.