reflections on war.

about a week ago, stephen found out his good friend, john mccary, had been asked to join a panel of other veterans for the pre-screening of ken burn's most recent documentary - the war. capturing the sacrificial stories of the greatest generation through the lens of 4 american towns, this documentary series, being 6 years in the making (totaling 15 hours of footage!), held its private screening debut yesterday at the historic lincoln theater. so off we went to see what all the fuss was about....

in short, the excerpt we were shown was very real and very personal and thus very moving - definitely an enticing foretaste of the full documentary. this seven-part series begins on your local pbs channel this next sunday 9/23 and extends into the week. we definitely plan on tivo'ing them all and purchasing copies for our veteran grandfathers.

however the most interesting part of wednesday night was the panel discussion that occurred after the projection reel stopped. with only a panel of 3 - each a veteran representing different wars in our country's recent history - it was fascinating to hear the various perspectives spanning world war ii, vietnam and iraq. hard questions resulted in rare intimate answers that were so revealing to the similarities of war across generations. with about 30 years between each of the panelists, the passing of time proved an enlightening reflection of how the necessity and consequences of wartime service are digested by the soldier individually and the nation collectively. i truly wish there was a transcript of this resulting discussion - it was pretty amazing.

afterwards, we linked up with john and decided to hop a block down on u street to grab dinner at alero. he truly did a phenomenal job portraying his experiences in iraq during such a controversial time. especially when paired up with the other honorable gentlemen on the panel! dinner proved to be just as enjoyable... between john's endearing extended family, noted journalist, jane arraf, who knew john during his days in iraq, and jane's friend, kamala, a very personable foreign service diplomat, it certainly made for quite an interesting evening all in all.