The Best Years of our Lives

Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, wives of our nation's President and Vice-President, have been touring the country talking about the focus of their charitable cause: lay-citizen support of military families, and making us all more aware of the sacrifices they make.

These families experience many challenges while their loved ones are away on deployment in military service. They face single parent struggles financially, the challenges of parenting children alone, loneliness, and other stresses. Meanwhile, their spouse may be endangering his or her life in the defense of our freedoms. Many of us don't know lots of military families, unlike in some of the previous wars of this nation, in which most families had one member or another serving.

Seeing the First (and Second) ladies on their press junket reminded me of the movie "The Best Years of Our Lives," in which three men return from the hardships of World War II and face the challenges of assimilation back into society. Released just after the end of World War II, it won seven Oscars and dealt with themes that ring true today, in which servicemen and women struggle to find their places again once they return home.

So many of the themes are the same - soldiers with limbs blown off, trying to rehabilitate. In this movie, the real actor lost his hands in the war and had learned to manage with hook prosthetics. Homer lights a cigarette, shoots targets with a rifle, takes piano lessons, and delicately scoops ice cream with a spoon at an old fashioned soda fountain.

There is even anti-war sentiment: not in hippie garb, but in regular suit clothing. A man feeling sorry for the hook-armed sailor tells him the United States shouldn't have entered the war. The sailor is told he lost his arms for a less-than-noble cause. The debates about going to war are nothing new.

We see PTSD - although no one calls it that, of course. The airman Fred has nightmares and sweats, dreaming of being shot down, bullets and planes crashing, men on fire. His wife tells him to "snap out of it," get on with the business of living. If only he could.

But let us not hate the people we fight. The anti-racial remarks, against Asians or people of Arabian decent, is very old in this country. Here, the line is "last year we were killing Japs. This year it's about making money." I've heard the same things from men in other wars, such as those who fought in Vietnam. Many things, including types of food from the foreign countries, were of no interest to these veterans.

There is also the generation gap, in which the devoted teenage son has trouble becoming excited about the Samurai sword his father has carried home. He's more concerned that if another war begins, "everyone will just be blown to bits the first day." Such was the legacy of our post-war baby boomers.

The real-life double amputee in this movie, Harold Russell, is wonderful, and carries the movie. Myrna Loy is so poised and classy, a real lady: a standout in Hollywood. But to be honest the acting is sometimes overdone, the dialogue or screenwriting not completely natural. Hoagy Carmichael, the songwriter, is actually a good actor here, and plays the piano.

Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden are right. We need to think about and support our military families in any way we can. Maybe base housing segregates them too much from other families, I don't know. We can't ignore the sacrifices they make. And we don't seem to be any closer to putting an end to all wars.