{"id":435153,"date":"2021-04-20T11:36:36","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T15:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=435153"},"modified":"2021-04-20T11:37:44","modified_gmt":"2021-04-20T15:37:44","slug":"why-todays-boys-could-use-an-old-fashioned-war-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-todays-boys-could-use-an-old-fashioned-war-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Today\u2019s Boys Could Use An Old-Fashioned War Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhy-todays-boys-could-use-an-old-fashioned-war-movie%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=435153&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-2878.jpeg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.0.3\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>I recently re-watched the World War II film\u00a0<em>A Bridge Too Far<\/em>.\u00a0 It is the story of the largest airborne operation in history.\u00a0 Although it was a serious defeat for the Allies, it did provide the material for Cornelius Ryan\u2019s splendid book which director Richard Attenborough made into the epic war film of the same name in 1977. The movie featured an all-star cast that included Robert Redford, Sean Connery, Ryan O\u2019Neal, Gene Hackman, Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins, Maximilian Schell, James Caan, Elliot Gould and Lawrence Olivier, among others.<\/p>\n<p>In the pantheon of great war movies, Attenborough\u2019s ambitious three-hour epic is often overlooked. Yet, the sweeping cinematography and attention to historical detail make for some of the most realistic and well-crafted combat scenes you will find. But I think this film is special for another reason. It is an homage to distinctly male values much dissipated today: duty, honor, camaraderie, chivalry, and testicular grit rarely exhibited by men depicted in today\u2019s Hollywood\u2026wherein it seems the pasty-faced overly-sensitive coastal metrosexual vampire or the buff but caricatured superhero is what passes for manhood these days.<\/p>\n<p>To say they don\u2019t make \u2019em like they used to is clich\u00e9. But even some clich\u00e9s are born from valid observation.<\/p>\n<p>I Googled \u201c50 Best Guy Movies\u201d and for one list plucked at random, which ranges from\u00a0<em>The Searchers<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0<em>The Bridge On The River Kwai<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Dirty Harry, Cool Hand Luke,<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0<em>The Dirty Dozen<\/em>, the average year of production is 1976. Where have all the men gone? United Talent agent Louise Ward offers an explanation of sorts: \u201cI believe there\u2019s been a certain feminization of the American male. As a result, there are a lot of \u2018mama\u2019s boys.\u2019 \u2026That kind of nurturing softens what we\u2019re used to seeing on the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Ward is partially right. Indeed, there are a lot of \u201cmama\u2019s boys\u201d in this country. But I wish it was just in the pampered manner to which she refers. The real concern is there are a diminishing number of \u201cpapa\u2019s boys\u201d out there. 40% of kids in the United States, from the first grade to their senior year of high school, do not have a father at home. As such, any boys this entails lack fathers to instill in their sons proper values. It seems like more and more often when we see young boys today, it is usually on a police bodycam video brandishing a gun or knife, being shot for their efforts, and then eulogized as martyrs of police brutality, rather than the tragic byproduct of the collapse of the nuclear family.<\/p>\n<p>In a refreshingly blunt interview a while back, Denzel Washington presented a stark assessment of the crisis of fatherless boys in ever greater numbers roaming our streets.\u00a0 After relaying the story of an eleven-year-old Chicago boy who was already in a gang before being murdered by a fourteen-year-old, Washington said: \u201cYou blame \u2018the system?\u2019\u00a0 Where was his father? It starts in the house. It starts in the home. \u2018Yeah, well my father got locked up.\u2019 Well where was <em>his<\/em> father?\u201d In a personal reflection he then credited his not going down the wrong path \u2014 as did two of his childhood friends \u2014 with his having a relationship with his father while they did not. \u201cWhere\u2019s the father?\u201d is the most pressing sociological question of our time. And yet we are not allowed to discuss this obvious truth. But talk about it or not, the truth will be heard. It is heard every time a thirteen-year-old Adam Toledo is out on the Chicago streets at 2:30 A.M. brandishing a gun and inevitably dies by the sword of his choosing. Where was his father? That should be the first question we ask.<\/p>\n<p>My own father died two days after I turned sixteen. That was 37 years ago, and there is not a day that goes by when I do not think of him. I often tell people that I feel like I stumbled blindly into my adult years, \u201cunder-cooked\u201d so to speak. That was due to the hole in my life that only a stern male role model (in my case a combat veteran Marine) could fill. My mother did a terrific job, and she was my hero in this regard. But I wonder how many mistakes I have made in my life that I would have avoided just by virtue of my dad\u2019s guidance and counsel, not to mention a well-deserved smack to the back of the head. The simple fact is, as any objective sociological study will reveal, a fatherless boy, no matter his race, is at risk in all aspects of life \u2014 be it incarceration, drug use, failing in school, emotional and social dysfunction, depression, violence, or overall poverty. Because no one is there in his formative years to keep him on the right path, and instill in him what it means to be an honorable man.<\/p>\n<p>It has been said that politics is downstream of culture. And in the USA, culture for generations was most reflected in, and influenced by, Hollywood. And once upon a time, in films like <em>A Bridge Too Far<\/em>, what values and behaviors did Hollywood still feel comfortable celebrating?<\/p>\n<p>In my favorite scene, we see a classic\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-Li65P_3lvM&#038;playnext=1&#038;list=PL2432C1CFDF5A9980&#038;feature=results_main\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v%3D-Li65P_3lvM%26playnext%3D1%26list%3DPL2432C1CFDF5A9980%26feature%3Dresults_main&#038;source=gmail&#038;ust=1619016739171000&#038;usg=AFQjCNGLhaxqFtY3-r1i-K5VaS9Hu8dXXg\">demonstration of old school bravado<\/a>\u00a0when the tough-as-nails Col. John Frost (Hopkins) is called to the roof of his bombed out HQ by the umbrella-wielding Maj. Carlyle (Christopher Good). Stepping over the rubble, a German soldier (Lex van Delden) approaches the surrounded band of exhausted and ultimately doomed British 2nd parachute battalion troops bearing a white flag of parlay.<\/p>\n<p>German:\u00a0<em>\u201cMy General says there is no point in continuing this fighting. He is willing to discuss a surrender.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Frost (to Carlyle):\u00a0<em>\u201cTell him to go to hell.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Carlyle (shouting down to the German):\u00a0<em>\u201cWe haven\u2019t the proper facilities to take you all prisoner! Sorry!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>German:\u00a0<em>\u201cWhat?!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Carlyle:\u00a0<em>\u201cWe\u2019d like to.\u00a0\u00a0But we can\u2019t accept your surrender. [Pause] Was there anything else?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Ballsy stuff there. The <em>Waffen-SS<\/em>, not known for being softies on a battlefield, were so impressed by their gallant British foes that they permitted cease-fires for tending to the wounded.<\/p>\n<p>When the\u00a0Arnhem bridgehead is finally liquidated, in the film we see\u00a0<em>SS-Obergruppenf\u00fchrer<\/em>\u00a0Wilhelm Bittrich (Schell) offer a gesture of kindness and respect to the wounded Frost, who is now his prisoner; he salutes him with clicking heels, and offers his brave captive a bar of chocolate.<\/p>\n<p>Attenborough\u2019s classic aptly demonstrates the respect among soldiers that only men of a more masculine age can understand. Though not depicted in the film, during the actual battle, an\u00a0<em>SS<\/em>\u00a0squad leader Alfred Ringsdorf took stock of his British opponents when reporting to his commander the delay in liquidating the stubborn Tommies still holding one end of the Arnhem bridge:\u00a0 \u201cBelieve me these are\u00a0real men!\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThey won\u2019t give up that bridge until we carry them out feet first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I mention\u00a0<em>A Bridge Too Far<\/em> in today\u2019s context as it is filled with such real men who did extraordinary real man things that would defy a modern soft-handed latte-sipping self-identified cisgender male\u2019s imagination! One of the most intense American scenes is the 82nd Airborne\u2019s Maj. Julian Cook (Redford) leading his band of paratroopers in collapsible canvas boats rowing across the Waal River under murderous German artillery and machine gun fire to successfully assault the Nijmegen Bridge. When the boats first arrive, the men, including Cook, are visibly shaken by their flimsiness. But he suppresses his fears and shouts, \u201cWhat\u2019d you expect? Destroyers? Come on, put it together!\u201d Cook\u2019s unit took over 50% casualties in this mini D-Day.<\/p>\n<p>The men who fought our wars over the centuries are not superheroes. They would be the first to tell you this. Eugene Sledge, a Marine veteran, would remember candidly that what concerned him most as his landing craft headed for the boiling cauldron of the Peleliu beaches in 1944 were two things: one was \u201cwould you measure up in the eyes of your buddies\u201d and the other was \u201cI was afraid I was going to wet my pants.\u201d But he went in anyway and would fight bravely throughout the Palau and Okinawa campaigns. Once the shooting starts any notion of fighting \u00a0for \u201cKing and country\u201d as the old saying goes dies away. Men through the crucible of facing challenges together form a bond and ultimately fight for each other. One thinks of Henry V\u2019s famous speech before Agincourt:<\/p>\n<p><em>We would not die in that man\u2019s company<\/em><em><br \/>\nThat fears his fellowship to die with us\u2026<br \/>\nWe few, we happy few, we band of brothers;<br \/>\nFor he today that sheds his blood with me<br \/>\nShall be my brother; be he ne\u2019er so vile,<br \/>\nThis day shall gentle his condition;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In yet another famous reflection, from another war on another continent in another century, an American Civil War soldier in a letter to his wife lamented that should he die in battle he would not \u201csee our boys grow up to honorable manhood\u201d in his absence. (He was killed at First Bull Run).<\/p>\n<p>We currently live in a culture in which that sublime phrase \u201chonorable manhood\u201d is often dissuaded, even ridiculed, by our cultural powers that be, only to be replaced by snarky admonitions against \u201ctoxic masculinity.\u201d And we are seeing this mindset seeping into film. Alas, says <em>The Dark Knight Rises<\/em>\u00a0casting director John Papsidera: \u201cThe ugly truth is that American leading men just aren\u2019t terribly manly anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not so the men in\u00a0<em>A Bridge Too Far<\/em>. My son, who was barely ten when he first watched Attenborough\u2019s magnum opus, was fascinated by this movie. My theory is that when he saw how these soldiers comport themselves with stoic valor that belies their genuine fears it tapped into his still developing, innate manhood; something primordial in him triggered a connection with alpha males like Col. Frost, the taciturn Gen. Gavin (O\u2019Neal) the rock steady British Gen. Roy Urquhart (Connery), the no-nonsense cigar-chomping Col. Stout (Gould) and the fiercely determined Sgt. Dohun (Caan) \u2013 that last of whom risks court-martial to honor a promise to keep his severely wounded lieutenant alive.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not saying there are no real men left in any war films. <em>Black Hawk Down<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Saving Private Ryan<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Hacksaw Ridge<\/em>\u00a0and the new\u00a0<em>Midway<\/em>\u00a0do their parts. As did the fine HBO series\u00a0<em>Band of Brothers<\/em>\u00a0and its underappreciated companion piece\u00a0<em>The Pacific<\/em> (in which Eugene Sledge\u2019s experiences on Peleliu and Okinawa, and his post-war battle with PTSD, \u00a0was a storyline). Perhaps truth is braver than fiction. Whatever the case, I fear that a generation of boys is growing up with a terribly destructive void in their lives. Nature abhors a vacuum, and absent a real dad to keep a boy in his lane, a faux paternal substitute \u2014 gangs, drugs, crime, video games, the darker side of our culture \u2014 will step in to fill the gap. We are seeing that impact now.<\/p>\n<p>Bona fide manliness is under assault from two flanks. The feminization on one side, (see: Drag Queen Story Hour) and the brutalization on the other (see: Chicago on a typical weekend). The former makes us vulnerable to threats from without, the latter from within. Neither bodes well for the country. As such, this generation of young American boys, lost and all-to-often fatherless, could use a dose of such undiluted old-fashioned machismo tempered in decency and character as displayed in films like <em>A Bridge Too Far. <\/em>If anything, to convey to them just what those two things below their belts really stand for. The way an engaged father might. Especially in an overly sensitive age in which genuine real men are needed to navigate an ever more threatening and chaotic world, on the screen and off.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brad Schaeffer is a commodities trader and writer whose articles have appeared in\u00a0The Wall Street Journal,\u00a0New York Daily News,\u00a0National Review,\u00a0Celeb Magazine,\u00a0Zerohedge,\u00a0Frumforum, and other news outlets.\u00a0 He is the author of the acclaimed World War II novel\u00a0Of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Another-Time-Place-Brad-Schaeffer\/dp\/1682616630\">Another Time And Place<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><i>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i>member<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently re-watched the World War II film\u00a0A Bridge Too Far.\u00a0 It is the story of the largest airborne operation in history.\u00a0 Although it was a serious defeat for the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2276286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-2878.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Why Today\u2019s Boys Could Use An Old-Fashioned War Movie","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-435153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-2878.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Why Today\u2019s Boys Could Use An Old-Fashioned War Movie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2276286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}