by Willy Holtzman
JANUARY 22–APRIL 11
A stirring tribute to the Greatest Generation and their children

Contains adult language

AUDIENCE REACTION

SYNOPSIS
On the surface, Donald Waldman is a typical World War II veteran: resilient, skillful, and cunning. He and his war buddies rendezvous every week to play cards and reminisce while their wives play Mah Jong. However, disturbing memories of the war lie just below the surface and carry this courageous vet back to the front lines of WWII, exposing the cracks in his stoic façade. The Vietnam War rages on in the present day, amplifying his anguish. The struggles Donald and his comrades have endured, and the truth of why they can’t sleep at night, are revealed in this story of war, family, and love.

DIRECTORS NOTE
The country has spent a lot of time in recent years talking about the “Greatest Generation”.  In his 1998 book on the subject, Tom Brokaw wrote:  

They stayed true to their values of personal responsibility, duty, honor and faith…[They were] battle-scarred and exhausted, but oh so happy and relieved to be home…The war had taught them what mattered most in the lives they wanted now to settle down and live.”

All true, of course, but to those of my generation, the Baby Boomers, there is something a little too simplistic in this description.  It is a beautiful summation of those men and women who took part in World War Two, but somewhat vague about the ones who came home, about what happened to them as they attempted to settle down into their new suburban lives.  My own father was deeply affected by what he experienced in the South Pacific during the war, but never spoke in detail about those events – not to anyone.  The man I knew was a thorny, difficult character, easily explained by what he went through, or so I assume, but incapable of discussing those events.

We’ve gone through quite a few wars since World War Two, and we speak so easily now about post traumatic stress.  We expect it. We prepare for it.  But the Greatest Generation did not have that option.  They had no name for what they were experiencing.  They were shown horrors most of us can’t even imagine, and then they were told to forget these images when they returned.  To speak of them was impossible.  It would have been “unmanly.”

Willy Holtzman was fortunate enough to have a father who broke through, or maybe even broke down, spoke of what he saw, and of what it made him feel.  And because he did, we all have the great good fortune to spend an hour or so in the presence of a big hearted, loud, funny, messy man who simply couldn’t forget.