Shared sacrifice: thing of the past

Just saw the first trailer for "The War," the new documentary by Ken Burns. Said something about "shared sacrifice," which is a term that hasn't been relevant to more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's rare to know someone, or have a family member, engaged in Iraq. Military families shoulder the burden, while the rest of us go shopping. Meanwhile, the chickenhawks talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Mitt Romney's four sons are busy with important work, such as driving their daddy's campaign bus across Iowa.

Perhaps the Burns documentary will open people's eyes to the strangeness that is "life during wartime," 2007 version. Maybe not.

Here's the blurb from PBS:

THE WAR, a new seven-part documentary series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who become caught up in one of the greatest cataclysms in human history. Six years in the making, this epic 15-hour film focuses on the stories of citizens from four geographically distributed American towns - Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and the tiny farming town of Luverne, Minnesota. These four communities stand in for - and could represent -- any town in the United States that went through the war's four devastating years. Individuals from each community take the viewer through their own personal and quite often harrowing journeys into war, painting vivid portraits of how the war dramatically altered their lives and those of their neighbors, as well as the country they helped to save for generations to come. THE WAR will air over two weeks, beginning Sunday, September 23, 2007(four nights the first week and three nights the second week) from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (8:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on three nights).