I've watched this mini-series at least a half dozen times at this point. Each time, I learn new things. Each time, I'm completely enthralled. There is so much insight, so many things that I did not know about World War II that it is sometimes difficult to absorb everything that's related. And this is, mind you, just from the point of view of the United States and its soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.In particular, the first person stories told by those who were there, who fought or were prisoners during the war, are very engrossing. Their stories are poignant, and you genuinely feel their losses and their grief. Even after so many viewings, I frequently find myself tearing up at certain points. This is one of the many things that speaks to the enduring quality of the documentary. Keith David's narration is spot on, providing an anchor that is sometimes necessary considering the material being discussed.In short: I cannot recommend this more. Watch it.

Let's start with the basics - this isn't 'the war', this is America's war. The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the British Empire - let alone Poland or China - only get a look in, with most of the pre-1941 war barely mentioned at all. The series limits itself even further. This is the war as seen by a few small towns in the US (except when it isn't). This is the war as experience, with a bare- bones narrative to connect and (partially) contextualise the personal stories. This is history as emotion - telling each other sad stories without ever understanding the deeper currents of human existence.What's more, Ken Burns is really most interested in the home front and in particular the racial aspect of America in the 1940s - which means that you have to steel yourself for endless guff about American racism against blacks and the Japanese (with the Hispanics tacked on after Latino pressure groups made a stink). Sorry, but Manzanar and Jim Crow is hard to get worked up with in a war that saw the Burma-Thailand Railway and Belsen. In truth 90% of America was white at the time, blacks and Japanese saw almost no combat and played a very minor support role in the war. That isn't to take away from the bravery of the 442nd or to deny that the Red Ball Express was important, just that in context of the American war effort (let alone in context of the global war that was raging) they are pretty unimportant.The music and the interviewees and much of the footage is very good. But the history is appalling; bereft of insight, overview and comprehension. The structure is awkward, the writing clumsy, the narrative plodding, and the whole thing manages to feel tremendously pompous in that special PBS way. In comparison, THE WORLD AT WAR is over thirty years old, often badly shot, and with a much smaller budget. Yet it ascends intellectual and moral heights simply unknown to THE WAR. The sheer, gut-wrenching horror of THE WORLD AT WAR's quiet descriptions of evil are infinitely more powerful than the manufactured cathartic weepy moments of THE WAR. Any attempt to encapsulate the entire Second World War requires a genius, with immense organisational talents, great intellectual depth, and tremendous emotional feeling - Ken Burns isn't such a person. But the archive sure is pretty and the interviews are always interesting.

Ken Burns has done it again. "The Civil War" was a masterpiece. "Baseball" was absolutely superb. And "The War" is another A+ piece of work. Why? Let me count the ways.1) All wars are hell. This time Burns was able to show what little he felt most humans could suffer without vomiting, some of which was filmed on the spot. Sure, some of the editing was a little choppy. Sure, vast areas of what happened in 1939-1946 had to be omitted by nature of the immensity and complexity of what happened. But most of the younger kids who thinks wars are only fought in the Middle East and who knew nobody in their families who died, or for that matter don't even know the dates of WWII, haven't a clue. So what if they didn't like the music? Hell, they didn't have Ipods or plasma tvs or cable then. Do some reading. Try to envision what absolute hell war is. Burns showed us.2) For the first time, we were able to hear it - extensively - from people who lived through it. How many wouldn't give a lot to sit down with the folks from those 4 towns who spent hours in interviews, to hear more about it? WWII affected, almost as much as the Civil War, everyone in the country. Go talk to them, kids. Hear what they have to say. You and your generation have never submitted to anything that meant a total effort by your country to remain free. You can't conceive what it means to say that dropping 2 A-bombs of necessity to end the war saved over 500,000 American lives. People today froth at the mouth when they read the media touting the nearly 4,000 dead in Iraq. How about saving 500,000 lives? This war was so immense and affected everything and everyone that every generation of Americans should be made to really study it. Never since have we faced what these people faced. And Burns shows it. All of it.3) We - you - can't view this documentary in terms you are comfortable with: instant gratification, burning the flag, anti-war demonstrations, cell phones and emails, and the whole plethora of me-me-me that exists today. You need to read what life was really like then, who did what and how they did it, what they believed in, what manners they had, what they were willing to die for. Burns gives you continuous examples of people from 4 American towns for 15 hours to try to tell you what Americans were willing to do to save their way of life from seriously evil sickos who were hell bent on destroying us. Those psychos in the Middle East have the same sort of plan to destroy anything in the west; similar to plans Hitler had to literally own the world and kill off those he felt were in the way and the plans that the Japanese had of making every western country a subservient fiefdom. Read about it. Read a lot about it (if you know how to read) and then watch the Burns doc. See what it took to stop them. Oh, Hitler and Tojo and Stalin, eventually, weren't that bad? They were only comic-book characters? If you believe that, you need a serious education.4) What happened in 1941-1945 happened. As in all wars throughout history, there were morons in charge of some, heroes in charge of others, misguided attempts, spectacularly successful attempts, incredibly unlucky attempts. But nothing ever so large, on such a scale of planning, training, executing, supplying, and staffing h as ever occurred in the history of man, and probably never will. And Burns eloquently captured some of its essence. Nobody could EVER capture all of it, or even parts of it, on the scale in which it happened. WWII was the last of the romantic wars. During WWII there were still espionage, undergrounds, passwords, night parachutings, spy chains, radio broadcasts, a whole litany of danger that stopped with the Cold War. After that, Korea and Vietnam and now the butchery in Iraq turned into cold, mechanical, medieval barbarism. Burns had to pick and choose the parts that brought the personalities of those from four American towns into view. And he did that very well.

"Dear God, we need your help real bad. Don't send anyone else but yourself, neither. Not even Jesus. 'Cause this is no place for kids."I'm half way through the series and am absorbing it like a sponge. Fantastic story tellers, especially that pilot, Quentin Annensen (sp?). Oscar-winning actors couldn't have done it any better, telling chilling stories that make me realize how lucky I am, as a young man, to not have to experience such things. (...And I thought I had drama in my life.)My Grandfather survived the war on various submarines, so I've been a bit disappointed there's been no mention, so far, of sub warfare. But as the series describes, "there were millions of people involved and millions of stories." I'm not too upset.To the filmmakers, terrific job. To the vets, I'll always remember you.