anybody watch The War on PBS tonight?

[Bombero1956]

I watched out of curiosity and to see if Burns added any material on Hispanics/Latinos. At 10:02 PM a new segment started that mentioned and interviewed 2 Mexican-Americans who fought in the South Pacific. They were Pete Arias and Bill Lansford, whose mother came to the United States from Juarez, Mexico. Both were members of the 2nd Raider Battalion, under the command of Major Evans Carlson on Guadalcanal. I wonder if that will be the extent of the additional material.

[EFerrari]

1. I did, Gargoyle, and wondered the same thing.

I wasn't crazy about the film even apart from that.

[Bombero1956]

2. well after the first episode

they've only added 5 more minutes on Mr. Arias and Mr. Lansford which aired tonight. A total of 5 minutes on Native American participation.

[Cybergata]

3. New Mexico sent some of the first National Guard's men to . . .

the Philippines. There were numerous Hispanic New Mexicans who were among the Guardsmen who were captured on Bataan as well as lived and died on the Bataan Death March and subsequent imprisonment.

My own father, Carlos López was an officer in a tank regiment that was part of the D-day invasion. He received two Purple Hearts, and suffered from injuries he received from the war his entire life. My uncle, Ramón López fought in the Pacific as did many of my father's life long friends.

I have long been a fan of Ken Burns, but I took his snub of Hispanics very personally. My father was always proud of his service during WWII. At his funeral, there were a group of Hispanic vets from WWII who gave my father a twenty gun salute. It has been over ten years since my father's funeral, and I still get tears in my eyes at the thought of these wonderful Hispanic men from New Mexico honoring my father that day.

I guess we need a Hispanic film maker to the stories of people like my father and the vets who gave him a salute at his funeral.

Here's a good link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_Americans_in_World_War_II