Jonathan M. Bullinger - Reagans Boys and the Children of the Greatest Generation

For the fifty-seventh anniversary of D-Day (June 6, 1944) in 2001, the surviving members of Easy Company flew to Normandy in early June thanks to the generosity of both American Airlines and HBO. For many of these now elderly war veterans, this was probably going to be their last D-Day commemoration. However, their presence also served an alternative purpose. They were present to attest to the authenticity of, and promote, filmmaker Steven Spielberg and actor Tom Hankss new collaboration, the television mini-series, Band of Brothers (HBO, 20012002) at its premiere. The relationships among Spielberg, Hanks, historian Stephen E. Ambrose and newscaster Tom Brokaw created collaborative, thematically intertwined World War II creations that shared a sense of mission they seek not to entertain but to educate (Confessore 2001, 2122).

These creators felt they were providing the audience three things: a more accurate view of the war by incorporating oral histories, information about people who sacrificed themselves for us, and what we fought and ultimately triumphed over. They educated across media platforms, with Ambroses best-selling books, his newspaper columns, chat show appearances, and his narration of documentaries being but one example. These multi-media appearances, along with Saving Private Ryans (1998) critical and commercial success and Brokaws books selling in excess of five million copies, led to a feeling that a very particular type of World War II remembrance had taken over. Journalist Nicholas Confessore (2001) succinctly summarizes this feeling when he wrote of this time, that it seemed like for many Americans, World War II has been replaced by World War IIwritten by Stephen E. Ambrose, directed by Steven Spielberg, hosted by Tom Brokaw, and starring Tom Hanks (22).

In the 2004 DVD box-set release for Saving Private Ryan: The World War II Collection, there is included a documentary entitled Price for Peace. This documentary acts as an artifact illustrative of the relationships and cross-promotions among Spielberg, Brokaw, and Ambrose. The introduction is hosted by Spielberg, who tells the audience freedom is not free. Then, the original host introductions from the NBC Memorial Day premiere broadcast of the Price for Peace documentary on May 27, 2002, are shown and hosted by Tom Brokaw. Also included are two advertisements for the National D-Day Museum (now known as the National World War II Museum) and an interview with Stephen E. Ambrose, who explains that the museum is important because it brings generations together. Another documentary included in the 2004 DVD box-set, titled Shooting War: World War II Combat Cameramen, is hosted and narrated by actor Tom Hanks.

The Band of Brothers premiere episode aired in the fall just two days before the 9/11 terror attacks. It was a high-water mark for its creative team, whose previous representations of World War II (Saving Private Ryan) had significantly added to our conceptions of that war. Saving Private Ryans success took some by surprise; mostly those who defined successful box office revenue as one connected to young audience tastes only. However, it was not a surprise to those older viewers who had noticed the increasing amounts of World War II media released or broadcast during the previous years.

These World War II media releases included best-selling books, feature films, and multiple hours of television programming dedicated to commemorative events. Beyond the screen, museums dedicated to the subject also opened. It is not that representations of World War II ever really went away since the end of the war on September 2, 1945. A book, TV show, or film seemed to always pop up every now and again during the ensuing decades. Yet, to those paying attention, it felt as though there was a new version of these representations beginning in the U.S. during the 1980s and increasing in intensity throughout the 1990s.

If you grew up when I did, during the 1980s and 1990s, you might have felt enveloped within a nostalgia for the immediate post-World War II period of prosperity that most of the U.S. had enjoyed. Of course, not all children enjoy history and embrace the past, but my family certainly leaned into it; at times, the past felt like an unasked-for weight upon my shoulders. Nonetheless, no matter who you were during the 1980s, you would have noticed this past around you in one form or another. It may have been the 1950s familial emotional core of the successful sci-fi film Back to the Future (1985), the cinematic transformation of First Bloods (1982) Vietnam PTSD narrative into Rambo: First Blood Part IIs (1985) jingoism, or President Ronald Reagans persistent wistful paean for older, better times. Put simply, there seemed to be a nostalgia for the U.S. version of World War II that became increasingly salient and crystalized, if not completely homogeneous, as the 1980s began and continued to be felt throughout the 1990s.

After Saving Private Ryan, these releases continued, including more best-sellers, more films, first-person shooter video games, and multi-part television films such as Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010). By about the mid-point of 2001, there was a robust World War II industry begun by Spielbergs 1998 film Saving Private Ryan and Tom Brokaws 1998 book The Greatest Generation. On Fathers Day in 1997 not one book about World War II was on USA Todays bestseller list and yet in 2000 there were four. The year 2001 saw the release of Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War IIs Most Dramatic Mission, big-budget Hollywood film Pearl Harbor to kick off the summer box office, a two-hour National Geographic special on Pearl Harbor on NBC narrated by Tom Brokaw, and Brokaws third book, An Album of Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Generation, because the stories keep coming (Minzesheimer 2001, para. 8). Stephen E. Ambrose was publishing a childrens book about the war (The Good Fight: How World War II Was Won) in May 2001 and another book about B-24 pilots (The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany) in August 2001, while the TV adaptation of his book Band of Brothers was due in September of 2001.

That many observers label these creators as some sort of homogeneous mass leads credence to my concept of Reagan, Ambrose, Brokaw, and Spielberg being perceived as a fraternal and salient filter for the remembrance of World War II. Certainly, an event that cost roughly fifty million lives and introduced both the systematic destruction of an entire people and the atomic bomb should cast a long shadow onto future generations. Yet, it was not World War IIs complex story that cast such a particular and long shadow. Influenced by the propaganda of the war years, these creators nonetheless created their own unique, albeit narrow, version of World War II. It was a nostalgic gaze focused on the U.S. ground soldier, popularized and championed by President Ronald W. Reagan (19112004), and whose cause was subsequently taken up by many of the aging Baby Boomers (children born between 1946 and 1964) of the World War II generation. This book tells the story of that nostalgic gaze on the U.S. experience of World War II and on U.S. media products regarding the war, and how it began and how it differed from previous World War II remembrances.

Though it may seem silly to state the obvious, it is nonetheless important to remember the scale and complexity of World War II as an experience. The wars 2,194 days, from Hitlers invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, through Japans unconditional surrender on September 2, 1945, cost tens of millions of lives (specific totals vary). The U.S. produced 127,766 aircraft alone, costing $45 billion (Tassava 2009), and the U.S. Government Printing Office created numerous books, comic books, films, and some 200,000 propaganda posters alone (Heide and Gilman 1995). It certainly was about soldiers, but it was also about non-combatants whose lives were often disrupted or ended by one side or the other. Simply put, a