“The Politically Incorrect Guide to Memorial Day Movies”

Just in case you want to watch something in the Memorial Day vein this evening, here are a few recommendations:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448004/memorial-day-movies-politically-incorrect-guide

Having just returned from several remarkable days in Normandy, I’m very much in the World War Two mood.

Currently, I’m reading Killing Patton, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard.

And no, this isn’t because I’m a major Bill O’Reilly fan.  I occasionally watched bits of his television show, and I mostly agreed with him.  But I also often found him obnoxious and, if the allegations of sexual misbehavior level against him are true (as they seem to be), Fox had little choice but to give him the boot.  Besides, I expect that the book is almost entirely the work of Martin Dugald, not Bill O’Reilly.

In any event, Killing Patton is a page-turner.  And, more to the point, it provides a riveting narrative of the last stages of the Second World War in Europe, during the time — including the Battle of the Bulge and the crossing of the Rhine — when my father was serving as a staff sergeant affiliated (sometimes rather loosely, because of his assignments) with the Eleventh Armored Division of General Patton’s Third Army.  Coincidentally, George S. Patton was born in San Gabriel, California, the town in which I was raised, and, although he’s buried in Luxembourg, a statue of him presides over the San Gabriel Cemetery, where my brother’s grave is located.