Sixty years removed, World War II raises strong emotions.
Latino veterans and others are angry that Ken Burns’ seven-part, 14-hour documentary “The War,” premiering Sept. 23 on PBS, fails to mention the contributions of Latinos in WWII.
The whole country may have been united then, but it sure isn’t now. Some responses from Sunday’s story on the controversy:
“It is hard to believe that Burns would omit the Latino veterans who fought so gallantly during WWII. But what is also surprising is that Burns omitted any comment on the internment of German-Americans and Italian-Americans.” – Arthur D. Jacobs.
“So now we can’t discuss WWII without having a detailed account of every minority group? Find something worthwhile to write about rather than attacking one of our great documentary producers.” – John Rippley.
“I thought that you might be interested to know that a Latino soldier from Colorado, Joe P. Martinez, was the first Hispanic-American to be awarded the Medal of Honor in WWII.” – John Randall.
“Veterans from WWII have been the most recognized, and thanked, of all veterans in my memory. Now we have a group of people who think that they have been ‘left out’ because they weren’t mentioned by name? This victim mentality is demeaning and these men should be embarrassed.” – Name withheld.
Members of the coalition met with Paula Kerger, president and CEO of PBS, in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, without resolution of Latinos’ demands that part of the film be re-shot.
Weekend highlights
Today
“Las Vegas” ends its season with Danny taking drastic measures to help a friend avoid being deployed to Iraq (8 p.m., KUSA-Channel 9).
Saturday
Queen Latifah stars as an activist wife and mother diagnosed with HIV in “Life Support” (6 p.m., HBO).
Sunday
The boys look like their young old selves in the 1968 concert film “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus” (8 p.m., KBDI-Channel 12).
Around the dial
To fans of Jennifer Zeppelin: Don’t fret. Despite the recent arrival of Stacey Donaldson at Channel 4, Zeppelin will continue to do afternoon weather and other fill-ins … Anyone besides my colleague Mark Harden notice that the NPR reporter covering the Lewis “Scooter” Libby verdict was, yes, Libby Lewis? … Quotable: “The Constitution does not provide for first- and second-class citizens.” Wendell Willkie.
Dick Kreck’s column appears Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He may be reached at 303-954-1456 or dkreck@denverpost.com.
