I bought the Band of Brothers DVD set the other week and I’ve been watching through it. Apart from the fact that it is simply amazing and fulfills the gap that was left after Saving Private Ryan it kind of got me thinking about the Second World War. Like, it really only happened about 50 years before I was born. Had I been born 65 or 70 years earlier I could well have been drafted into the army and served in combat.
60-70 years sounds like a lot but looking at times like those in the Old Testament, hundreds of years can pass and it is an insignificant amount of time. compared to some timelines 60-70 years is no time at all.
Looking at it in this respect, I can’t get my head round the fact that 50 years on I can watch a fantastic film production of a bunch of guys fighting a horrific war that really didn’t happen all that long ago.
In that war there was probably a guy (or perhaps many guys) not unlike myself; in age, personality, belief, disposition, courage who found himself in Europe, a long way from home with no combat experience fighting a war so that in 50 years time a guy not unlike himself (me) could live a life of freedom.
It’s amazing.
