Not quite what people expected, I think, and is probably responsible for this movie's lukewarm reception at the theaters. Not a Pacific Theater version of Saving Private Ryan, but instead a more somber musing on the motivations of soldiers under fire, on what constitutes a 'hero' and the press and government's manipulations of public's hunger for patriotism and 'heroes' and a need to make sense of the sensless waste that is war. Probably a little more than most people want in a war picture.
The last scene at the beach was particularly moving (I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it yet), and is one that will likely stick in my memory for a while.
Wanted to wait and see this as a double feature with Letters from Iwo Jima, but it arrived the other day from Netflix and we decided to watch it now. Perhaps catch Iwo Jima in the theaters.