I watch that flick every Memorial Day... Superb movie.
Me too. Every Memorial Day.
I know a lot of people like to watch war movies on Memorial Day and there is nothing wrong with many of them. I recall watching Saving Private Ryan with my older brother and my dad, a WWII vet of the South Pacific and how much he was moved by it, saying that opening scene of the beach landing was about as close as any movie he’d ever seen to come close to the reality of it, what battle is like and the death of your comrades, the gore the screams, the chaos and terror at times. It was a very tough movie for him to watch as was Shindler’s List, one of the only movies that I know of that made my dad sob.
But this movie with its subdued dialogue and beautifully filmed and with no advert political agenda, tells a deeply personal story that is so moving on so many levels. If my dad had lived to see it I think he would have thought it a moving tribute to the sacrifices made, not only by the soldiers but by their families also along with the pain their fellow soldiers feel. Something my dad knew all too well as when he cradled in his arms, his very best friend who was shot and died in his arms, tragically by friendly fire. My dad often recalled his friend Pinty, the plans they had made for a life after war, going into the construction business together, that Pinty would never live to see and the “survivor guilt” my dad felt after seeing him and so many of his comrades in arms killed and that haunted him until the day he died.
Two scenes among many in Taking Chance that really hit me, one is when Lt. Strobel meets another military escort at the airport and after talking to this young soldier, realizes he is escorting the body of his brother. The other is when the older vet at the VFW the night before the burial of PFC Chance says to him, “You are his witness now. Without a witness, they just disappear.”