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| 'The War' uses archival film to reexamine World War II. Courtesy of U.S. National Archive |
Ken Burns's 'The War' as seen through teen eyes
We convene a panel of young viewers to watch the epic PBS documentary.
from the September 14, 2007 edition
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For most teens, World War II is the stuff of classroom textbooks and Hollywood movies. But for Lauren, the war has a personal face. Her grandmother was a young girl in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam and she often tells stories of being arrested for tearing down swastika posters in the street as her "attractive, older sister" rode a bicycle past the Nazi guards in an effort to distract them. And, says Lauren, with a mildly embarrassed laugh, her grandmother "has this weird ability to faint on cue." She used to faint while she stood in the endless bread lines of the day so that people let her go to the front, she adds.
If World War II is a more abstract notion for the other three teens, there's one thing they say they can relate to: The clarity of America's purpose. ("Who didn't hate Hitler?" says one teen, responding to a moment in the film when an American woman notes how much they all despised the German leader.) Even so, these teenagers do not relate to support for the leadership or the military depicted in the documentary. "We're much more sophisticated these days," says Julian. As a group, they say they don't need war to give themselves a sense of identity or purpose, as many of the interviewees in the series say they did. More than one of the film's veterans recalls how special the military titles and jobs made them feel. "I don't need a job killing people to feel important," adds Julian, the youngest panelist.
When the various veterans describe rushing to enlist, even lying about their age to make the cut, these teens can't relate to it, nor the draft. Alex and his family have discussed what would happen if a draft were implemented today. "My mother wouldn't let it happen," he says. "We would move to Canada first." The group also speculates what would happen if women were drafted in today's society. Women keep society together during wartime, says Soraya. "The family and therefore the whole society would fall apart."
As a group, they agree that what one veteran called the last "necessary war" shaped the modern world, more specifically gave birth to the US as a superpower. But they are all taken aback by America's unreadiness when war broke out.
"The Army still had thousands of cavalry horses!" says Lauren, repeating information from the film. "How did they ever do what they did?" she wonders aloud.
As the group breaks, a feeling of uneasy awe lingers at the table. Finally, one member voices a previously unspoken concern: "Will America ever be able to succeed like that again?"
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