"Memorial Day" 2012 Action Drama

[Allan H.]

Last night was a quiet evening with the wife out of town to see her sister, so I got to watch a couple of movies that I normally do not watch when she is around. One of the offerings on Amazon Prime Video was this movie, which stars James Cromwell, as an aged WWII Veteran, and Jonathon Bennett, who plays his grandson as an adult. The premise of the movie is that the grandson finds grandpa's footlocker in the barn and brings it out to grandpa to see  what is inside. Grandpa allows him to pick three items from the box and grandpa would tell the stories of those items. The movie goes on to show how the talk with grandpa shapes the grandson serving in Iraq as a staff sergeant in the 34th ID.

 

The movie itself is ok, though there will be plenty of collectors that will be disappointed with various uniforms, etc. For me, it was a real trip down memory lane as it reminded me of so many WWII veterans that I had the opportunity to speak with and to learn their stories. At times, I'll admit to tears as I remembered my own conversations with veterans and how almost all of those men that I called hero as a younger version of myself have all but passed away.

 

For me, the most important aspect of the movie is that all of those souvenirs that came back with these heroes all had a story. Many of us are fortunate that we had the opportunity to meet the men who brought them back. Hopefully, some of us got a story to go with those items that they came home with.

 

While the movie never won any big awards, to me, it is worth seeing as it will give the viewer an appreciation as to what those items meant to the men who brought them home.

 

Allan

[Kurt Barickman]

I hear your nostalgia Allan, meeting the veterans of which there were so many back when we started collecting in the 1970s and getting to see the trunks, attics, garages, etc. was sometimes more fun than getting the items and hearing the first hand stories and even more than a few WWI veterans; sad that that time has passed.

 

Kurt