If you’ve read here over time, you’ll know that I always have a few books going at any given moment. I was quite excited to be reading Steinbeck again, but I’ve got a few others going too — at least three of them audiobooks, depending on my mood. I just finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and I’m ready to launch into The Chamber of Secrets here in a bit. They’re excellent as audio books, and Jim Dale does an excellent job in the reading.
But a couple of weeks ago (I mentioned this previously), I picked up Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers, and I’ve resolved to finish it before moving on to anything else…at least in book form. I loved the series, and always wanted to read the book. Both the HBO series and the movie Saving Private Ryan were famed for being realistic in depicting the chaos and horror of combat. Still, as I read the book, I understand more now about the time and the place; and I understand most of all that the books and the movies can never be like the real thing. There’s something about the adrenaline and fear and emotion of combat that few people understand any more. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but when it’s been necessary, men have risen to the challenge.
The men of Band of Brothers came from what has come to be known as “The Greatest Generation,” and maybe that’s right. Every generation has it’s high points and low — its good points and bad. But here was a generation that came through a great depression and then fought a great war, and as bad as it seems to be these days, I think we’ll never see, let alone survive the conditions they experienced. Of course it’s entirely possible to face hardships of like severity. But the question is, will we rise to the occasion? Are their men and women of courage and honor and strength to whom we may look for rescue? Are any of us such people?
I would recommend reading the book Band of Brothers with those questions in mind.
Maybe you should read A Canticle For Leibowitz next