What To Watch, Read Or Play This Memorial Day

One book, one movie and one video game.

It’s sort of unsettling how we commodify every holiday even when some of them are about people dying or religious holidays that have deep spiritual significance to people of faith. Easter is all about bunnies and chocolate and pastels for some reason, even though it’s the central Christian holy day.

We often hear about the “War on Christmas” from right-wingers on Fox News and in various deeply boring Op/Eds each holiday season, but that war ended decades ago when Christmas became about buying and selling shit rather than spending time with family or, if you’re Christian, celebrating the birth of Christ.

Now, the stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the commercialism equivalent of the San Diego / LA corridor. Black Friday begins on Wednesday, absorbs any semblance of a patriotic or family-centric feast day and then never really stops until December 25th.

Memorial Day is also a day for sales. Sales everywhere! Just a little precursor to the big Labor Day sales! We can remember our troops the same we recognize the value of the American worker: By buying junk we don’t need! What a world.

Of course, there are other ways to celebrate today’s true meaning. We can honor the bravery and heroism of the young men and women who have served this country. If only we didn’t have to send so many young people to die to begin with, in both just and unjust wars—at the very least we can recognize their sacrifice even if we find the whole bloody business tragic and far too often completely pointless.

For my part, I have three recommendations for your, dear readers. I think one way to celebrate a day like today is through literature, cinema and even video games. I’ve picked one of each, and each has to do with WW2 because I find it one of the few “just” wars our country has fought in modern memory, as far as any war can ever be just.

The Book: Band Of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose

A popular HBO miniseries was based off of this book that I also recommend, but as always there’s really nothing better than the original. Ambrose details the valiant struggles of Easy Company—2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment—assigned to the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division, and the story of the paratroopers from boot camp to D-Day and the beaches of Normandy to the final push into Nazi Germany.

It’s a harrowing tale detailing some true acts of bravery in the face of overwhelming odds—not just enemy troops, but frozen winters and starvation, and ultimately confronting the true horrors of the Nazi regime. The book is based on interviews with the surviving members of Easy Company and it’s as much a war story as it is a lesson on human decency and leadership and how honorable men do sometimes overcome evil—or even the more mundane forces that stand in their way.

It’s also a very readable book—neither too long nor too bogged down at any point. You will have no trouble staying invested in the characters and their struggles. In fact, I had a hard time putting it down. Ambrose is a talented chronicler and he treats his subjects with respect while telling a story that is never sensationalized, but nevertheless sensational. The men of Easy Company are normal, every day heroes and yet larger than life—relics of a bygone era, but also often men we can look up to as role models even beyond their military valor.

You should also watch the miniseries on HBO. It’s 20 years old at this point but holds up remarkably well.

The Game: Call Of Duty: WWII

What, you thought I’d say Six Days In Fallujah? Ha, jokes on you! That game isn’t even out yet!

Perhaps picking Call of Duty will strike some as strange, but I choose this game for several reasons.

First, it’s very new so it’s easy to find and play on new machines—whether you have a PS4/PS5, Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S or PC. There are lots of older games, especially in the Medal of Honor series, that would make good picks but people might not have the right hardware for them (outside of PC—which, by the way, please do let me know if you have a favorite Medal of Honor game).

Second, while I spent the most time playing the excellent War Mode in this game, the campaign is actually quite good. Sure, the beaches of Normandy scene felt pretty small scale compared to other games, but the overall campaign was a surprisingly powerful one with a surprisingly dark ending that refuses to let the Nazis just be enemy combatants, revealing a darker side that you don’t really see in the combat preceding it.

Finally, it’s a story about the soldiers first and foremost. Not generals or overall strategy, not conspiracy theories, not the deeper meaning of the war or an alt-history take like Wolfenstein (however fun killing Nazi mechs may be). It feels like an appropriate pick for Memorial Day.

In many ways, this game is kind of like playing the video game version of Band of Brothers. It’s not as deep, not as historically profound. It’s Call of Duty, after all. But it immerses you to a degree and it treats its subject matter with respect.

The Movie: Hacksaw Ridge

There are too many great war movies out there to really ever pick which is best, which is most worthy of inclusion in a post like this. Saving Private Ryan would do just as well, but we have Band of Brothers and Call Of Duty: WWII already, and this would be too similar.

I loved Hacksaw Ridge because it shows us that bravery and courage are not always about someone’s ability to fight or to meet violence with violence. Sometimes, courage is turning away from the gun. How much courage does it require to go onto the battlefield with no gun at all? With only your faith in God and in the power of goodness to sustain and protect you?

Pacifism—true pacifism—fascinates me. There is almost nothing in the world more baffling and yet more noble than turning the other cheek. There’s a scene in the 1985 film Witness that’s always stuck with me. Without spoiling the film, Harrison Ford’s character is out with the Amish, among whom is the titular “witness.” The Amish are pacifists, and during one scene and older Amish man speaks with his grandson about taking human life.

Eli Lapp : This gun of the hand is for the taking of human life. We believe it is wrong to take a life. That is only for God. Many times wars have come and people have said to us: you must fight, you must kill, it is the only way to preserve the good. But Samuel, there's never only one way. Remember that. Would you kill another man?

Samuel Lapp : I would only kill the bad man.

Eli Lapp : Only the bad man. I see. And you know these bad men by sight? You are able to look into their hearts and see this badness?

Samuel Lapp : I can see what they do. I have seen it.

Eli Lapp : And having seen you become one of them? Don't you understand? What you take into your hands, you take into your heart. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. Go and finish your chores now.

Samuel Lapp : Yes Grossvater.

I include all of this because Hacksaw Ridge is another remarkable film that deals with the question of pacifism in a serious way. Directed by Mel Gibson, the film tells the story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) who—as a 7th Day Adventist—refuses to even carry a rifle, but still wants to serve. He ends up doing so as a combat medic. He was ridiculed and called a coward for his refusal to use a gun, and the army very nearly punished him for his conscientious objection. I won’t spoil more than that. Suffice to say, even if you find Gibson a distasteful person you should see this film. Gibson has personal problems, no doubt, but he’s a damn fine director and storyteller.

Bonus: Read this piece by Freddie deBoer which is a rather scathing takedown of some rather vapid woke nonsense about how white men “won” the culture wars that’s built entirely on the thesis that white Vietnam vets engineered grievances after that horrific war.

In any case, there are obviously other great books, movies and video games about war. Some of the ones I considered were about war but not about soldiers. Others I passed over for no good reason at all—only because I didn’t want to write a long list. But please do let me know what some of your picks would be! And they certainly don’t need to be World War 2.

Thanks for subscribing and I hope you have a good time with friends, family and loved ones this Memorial Day.