War Movies

Purely coincidentally (at least I think it was a coincidence, but one never knows about the workings of one's subconscious (speaking of which, has anyone doubted the existence of the subconscious since Freud (that's not a rhetorical question; I really don't know (so I should probably look it up)))), in the last week two weeks, I have seen three war movies.  In chronological order (by war, not by date of film (but, as you will notice, if they had been placed in chronological order by date of film, the order would be the same)):

Gone With the Wind
Saving Private Ryan
The Hurt Locker

The first two I had seen before.  Both are classics (but you knew that).  The last one is destined to be a classic--it was fantastic.  But, besides the overall observation that if you haven't seen any one of those three films, you should make a point of doing so, they do make for an interesting reflection on the changing nature of war.  War is a lot less bloody than it used to be.  In The Hurt Locker, we find it to be an utter tragedy when one soldier dies.  In Saving Private Ryan, one guy dies before anyone else does anything, and then a zillion more die before they even get onto the beach at Normandy.  In Gone With the Wind, not only are all the soldiers dying, but a whole city and surrounding region is burned to the ground.  That is the odd thing:  War is just as tragic today as it was in the late 1800s, but the death toll is incredibly smaller now than it used to be.  The tragedy of war seems constant, which means that the unit of tragedy per death had to skyrocket.  There is an interesting math equation in there somewhere, which would enable measurement of the tragic factor in death. 

The other observation--anyone who is not in awe of the courage shown by and overwhelmed with gratitude for the sacrifices of the guys at Normandy and the guys currently roaming around Iraq and Afghanistan is completely and utterly morally bankrupt.