In his article, Burying Private Ryan, David Halbfinger explores why the movie “Flags of Our Fathers” has been greeted by an underwhelming turnout.

We planned on seeing the movie this weekend with a few chaplain candidate friends. After reading the reviews I changed my mind. This rated R movie is more violent than Saving Private Ryan. I teetered back and forth about seeing it. Part of me thought I should be able to watch it. After all, I’m in the Army. I should be able to watch graphic depictions of war and hear a little rough language every now and then… But I’m also a wife. A wife of a man going to war very soon. Was that really how I wanted to spend the rare time alone I have with my husband? Watching decapitated heads roll across the large screen in front of me?

No. We saw the one act plays at Evangel instead.
So what does the article say about the movie’s lack of popularity?

“Private Ryan,” he said, came out in a “whole different era.”

“It was possible then to look back at World War II with nostalgia, and think that those were great men doing great things that Americans would never have to do again,” he said. “You’d think, well, people were shot to bits, but that was then. You could put sort of a mental distance to it. Now, if you see it happening on the sands of Iwo Jima, you know it’s happening in Iraq…”

Have you seen the movie? What did you think?