And if you ever get the opportunity, the American war graves around Brittany and Normandy are some of the most spectacular and moving places I’ve ever visited.

But it is in the little annual gatherings around the cenotaphs that litter the hamlets of the Norman countryside where the enormity of what people gave up that it really hits home.

The nearest war grave to our French home is a mere 500 yards away with the simple inscription: An American Soldier.

Band of Brothers did that with great impact.

I agree that was an excellent start to Ken Burn’s new documentary.

I’ve always been interested in war history as well because so many of my family members have fought in the major wars of this century. My dad was a Green Beret who fought in Viet Nam, my grandfather fought under George Patton in a field artillery battalion in North Africa and my grandmother’s brother was a paratrooper for the British 1st Airborne which was completely destroyed in Operation Market Garden when they held the Arnhem Bridge for 9 days against a German force that was 4 times as large and had massive armor and artillery support. Over 75% of the Division was killed or captured and he spent the rest of the war in a German POW camp.

As you mentioned, mixing the combat footage with interviews of the veterans who were there was fascinating. It was interesting to get the war from the perspective of the men who fought it rather than from a strategic perspective or from a heroic perspective that glosses over the reality of what these guys went through and the physical and emotional costs they bore.

-Brian