Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold WarTurning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror

I guess you could describe these as two segments of a series: 2024: The Bomb and the Cold War and 2021: 9/11 And the War on Terror.

If you combine the two, you will have too many episodes to watch during a week. You need to choose one, wait a few weeks, and then do the other. It’s not the issue of lots of hours of TV viewing. It is the dense drama that is presented in a gripping manner that will keep you glued to your seat.

If you want to know the inside story of what happened not only inside the U.S Government, but also inside foreign governments, this is it. I learned so much about history. The reason was not only because so much was classified at the time, but also the cumulative effect of the interactions and the results. I felt like I had been asleep for 50 years even though I have read a lot of history.

So much has been written about World War II, and so many feature movies picked out a short time to focus on. You just don’t get the whole story. Of courses, Iraq and Afghanistan are relatively recent by comparison, but the analogy is the time. Unfortunately, the War on Terror film ends before the withdrawal from Afghanistan so it misses a big part of the story. You need to SEE history in action, and I’m not talking about re-enactments of battle scenes. I don’t know how many millions of feet of film the producers had to review to find these scenes, but it was worth it.

People say that history is written by the winners. Of course, in most movies the United States is portrayed as the good guy. These documentaries don’t focus on our mistakes, but they don’t overlook them either. People did what they thought was best at the time with what limited information they had. Were some of the decisions the result of the personalities of the people who made them? Sure, but these episodes are not “cheap shots” against anyone.

These films are educational in every sense of the word. Do they have a particular point of view? As far as I can tell, it simply was to get as close to the unvarnished truth as much as possible. Don’t watch just before bedtime. The episodes are not scary; they just will set you mind to thinking so much that you can’t easily turn it off.

by John Suddath This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.