The Pacific - Part 5: Peleliu Landing

It's been over 65 years since the events we are watching took place, yet the men are still so recognizable. Then, they were brothers, sons, husbands and fathers. Now, those who are left, those whom I knew, all were grandfathers. Yet, to see them portrayed by these young men, these men who are no different from those we work with, laugh with every day, it makes the horrors that much more potent.

The message throughout this episode was that the soldiers who had experienced the Hell of war could not tell anyone who had not been through it what it was like. John Basilone (Jon Seda) had no details to give to his brother, or to any of his fans who were about to leave for the war. Even when Eugene Sledge (Joseph Mazzello) finally joined his best friend, Sid Phillips (Ashton Holmes) on the islands, Sid couldn't explain what Eugene was about to face.

He told him that, when the soldiers were in Australia, he had slept with a woman. And that was one side of the specter. On the other side, far, far down the line, as far as you could go, that was what it was like.

And then we got to watch another offensive, meant to illustrate this point. How any man ever could have the courage to throw himself on a beach and crawl or run towards machine guns, I will never understand. The utter luck of the entire thing - if you are on the right, you live, if you are slightly to the left, you die - is unbelievable. Only God or the Fates or some other supernatural being looking out for you could cause you to live, for no choice that you consciously make can make a difference.

No wonder these men could not tell us what that Hell was like - how could we understand without having survived it ourselves. How could we possibly understand.