Watch Honor Flight Documentary on Memorial Day

Note: This post originally ran last during Memorial Day Weekend in 2012. The documentary Honor Flight set a world record for live audience and is available for downloading at the film's official site.

In November 2009, then-ReasonTV staffer Dan Hayes produced the immensely moving documentary "Every Day is a Bonus: Veteran's Day November 2009 in D.C." The five-minute film followed the adventures of World War II vets being flown by the charity Honor Flight to the World War II Memorial in the nation's capitol (click here to watch that or scroll down).

Hayes left ReasonTV to make a full-length documentary about Honor Flight's activities and that film, co-produced with Clay Broga through their company Freethink Media and Stars and Stripes Honor Flight of Wisconsin, will debut on August 11 at Milwaukee's Miller Park (home to baseball's Brewers).

Go here to learn more about the film and Honor Flight's activities, and how you can support the film and its goals of thanking vets and energizing Americans to think about how best to live their own lives. From the website:

In a time of economic uncertainty and political division, Honor Flight is a unifying story about gratitude and freedom. The film is meant to inspire viewers to reflect on the freedom and opportunity they have been gifted. Honor Flight prompts viewers to recognize the Greatest Generation, not just by saying "thank you," but by striving to lead lives worthy of their legacy.

The filmmakers are hoping to generate 50,000 views this Memorial Day weekend to help raise the visibility of Honor Flight. Click above to watch and follow the hashtag #domore on Twitter.

Those of us who had relatives who fought in World War II or served at other times in the military are personally familiar with the service that soldiers perform, but all of us benefit from constant reminders of the costs they bear. Memorial Day is the nation's offical observance of those who paid the ultimate price of dying during wartime and is the perfect time to reflect on the often-casual heroism of fallen fighters and the larger questions raised by military action, national purpose, and individual conscience.

Note: Honor Flight's official movie site, where viewers can download the film in all popular digital forms, is online here.

Here's Hayes' 2009 film for ReasonTV that got his current project rolling:

Comments

[Zakalwe]

Speaking of honor flights, why isn't there an Air Force medal for joining the mile high club?

[Live Free or Diet]

Never did that (unless you count doing it in Denver) but how about 40 meters under water?

[Live Free or Diet]

Pardon me, that should be 40 feet.

[Zakalwe]

I think you meant 4 inches?

[sticks]

Penn had a funny story about scuba fucking in God, No.

[sticks]

"Those of us who had relatives who fought in World War II or served at other times in the military are personally familiar with the service that soldiers perform"

No, not true. Other than yelling at people I have no idea what my Dad did as an asst drill thingy during Vietnam. Well he probably got stoned a lot.

[Live Free or Diet]

My dad was in the Navy in the Korean war. I know little of what he did. I know he didn't get stoned there because he told me the story of trying pot in San Salvador. Like me, he didn't get a lot out of it.

[Zakalwe]

My grandfather made smart assed comments on various Texas air bases, got sent to OCS, got coffee for senior officers, got ready to go to Japan, got seriously pissed at all Germans and Japanese as the casualty notifications on his friends rolled in, and then got out when St. Truman nuked the foreign devils.

He eventually relented and bought me a Japanese car, but I remember when I was 13 we got held up for dinner on a Mediterranean cruise he took the grandkids on. "Why the hell do we have to wait? The goddamn Germans got a seat already!"

[Redmanfms]

My great uncle was at Corregidor in 1941. He harbored an unvarnished hatred of both MacArthur and Japs until he died.

My grandmother (his sister) had a Toyota Camry that he wouldn't allow on his property. We had to park at the end of the very long (2-2.25 mile) driveway to his camp in Maine when we went to see him.

Given what they did to him in captivity and during the march to captivity, I really can't much blame him.

[Irish]

Dick Durbin openly wonders whether or not the first amendment applies to people who aren't journalists.

But here is the bottom line ? the media shield law, which I am prepared to support, and I know Sen. Graham supports, still leaves an unanswered question, which I have raised many times: What is a journalist today in 2013? We know it's someone that works for Fox or AP, but does it include a blogger? Does it include someone who is tweeting? Are these people journalists and entitled to constitutional protection? We need to ask 21st century questions about a provision that was written over 200 years ago.

[RBS]

We need to ask 21st century questions about a provision that was written over 200 years ago

The stupid, it burns.

[PS]

Stop right where you are! You know the score, pal. You're not old media, you're little people!

[DJF]

Of course if Durbin bothered to read the Constitution he might notice that it does not mention journalists, it says "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". Freedom of speech applies to everyone while the press refers to the publisher who owns the press which I think today also means the person who owns the website. Journalists are hirelings who publish only what the owner of the press says they can publish, they have no freedom of the press unless they own one.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what the tuition rate for Georgetown Law was in the 1960s, but Durbin should go and get a refund.

We think that the ordinance is invalid on its face. Whatever the motive which induced its adoption, its character is such that it strikes at the very foundation of the freedom of the press by subjecting it to license and censorship. The struggle for the freedom of the press was primarily directed against the power of the licensor. It was against that power that John Milton directed his assault by his "Appeal for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing." And the liberty of the press became initially a right to publish "without a license what formerly could be published only with one." While this freedom from previous restraint upon publication cannot be regarded as exhausting the guaranty of liberty, the prevention of that restraint was a leading purpose in the adoption of the constitutional provision.

Lovell v. City of Griffin 303, U.S. 444, 452-453 (1938)

The protection of the First Amendment extends to anyone who disseminates information of a non-defamatory character, not just people with press passes.

[Francisco d Anconia]

the media shield law, which I am prepared to support, and I know Sen. Graham supports, still leaves an unanswered question, which I have raised many times:...

Why would the press have more rights under 1A than the averages citizen?

[eyeroller]

I'm doing a Kickstarter to build a Drone Pilots Memorial in Arlington. I'm thinking a giant stylized joystick, but suggestions are welcome.

[Zakalwe]

A hook "holding" a joy stick.

When are we doing the Arrested Development season 4 thread?

[sticks]

I don't think this is SPOILER...

Seth Rogen is the worst pArt about the new season. Maria Bamford (Sue Storm) is the best part.

[Zakalwe]

Agreed on Seth Rogen. But he's not there much. I felt the George Sr. in the Desert plot was the weakest part of it.

Initially I though it suffered from too little Maeby and George Michael, but I suppose they can't carry more than one episode a piece and coming as they did at the end and the impact of their reveals on previous storyline scenes I guess it works well enough.

Most of the weaknesses have to be given allowances for the scheduling/budget constraints that imposed this unconventional narrative structure. But no excuses for Seth Rogen.

John Slatterly supposedly made a pop-pop joke on Mad Men, so there's that.

[Irish]

Is it good? I'm going to go watch it soon. Is it worth my time?

Note: My time is very valuable.

[Zakalwe]

I expected it to be a disaster. I thought the break would rob the actors of a sense of their characters, and the writers as well. The trailer left me cold.

But I laughed throughout the whole thing. It's not the old Arrested Development, but it's good. If you're a bit dim or you don't watch it as close to straight through as you can (maybe 3-4 episodes a night at minimum, and don't skip a day) you won't enjoy it as much, because a lot of the strength comes when the same scene plays out again and again (and again) from different perspectives and with new reveals from different characters you didn't know where there the first time.

So, yes.

[Zakalwe]

And many of the GOB scenes are sublime. There's this scene with him and Michael that you see at least three times and each extra iteration you think "aha and/or oh shit!" But each new revelation is just a con.

Personal reminder: I need to see Rashomon some day.

[Irish]

I just watched the first three episodes and the one focusing on Lindsay is really funny. The entire section where they're buying a house is stupendous.

'You have no money, no income, no savings, and no work ethic and it's 2006. Of course I can get you this house.'

[Zakalwe]

Wait until the Maeby and Tobias episodes. They both were involved in Lindsay's India trip in ways that were not obvious. Not at all.

[sticks]

Yeah I'm thankful he isn't on it much. But every scene with him is flat. Overall enjoying it. I like the narrative structure even if it was imposed by budget constraints.
I'll probably watch it again trying to find jokes I missed.

[Zakalwe]

There's a lot of visual stuff in the background you'll miss if you focus too much on character faces. A good litmus test is whether you saw the loose seal mural in the airport as Michael did the slow walk at the end of the first episode. That's pretty easy to spot, but there's a lot of harder ones, like the "roofie circle" sign outside the Mexican pharmacy, and of course you always have to rewind and pause when there's a yearbook shot.

[Zakalwe]

Yeah, I just started rewatching. Already I get to appreciate the leg shot during the first Gob/Michael confrontation and note that there's a freaking woodblock sound during the first Michael/George Michael privacy talk. Genius.

[Zakalwe]

Hell, there's a lot more than that in the mural on a slow motion viewing. Stair car, cabin house on the trailer, wee Britain, loose seal, Ann left on the steps of the Mexican church, Queen Mary (SS, not bar)...

[Anonymous Coward]

A sculpture garden of a hellfire missile about to strike a group of unsuspecting wedding guests.

[cavalier973]

"Having written about these matters many times before, I know exactly how some people reflexively try to radically distort the argument beyond recognition in order to smear you as a Terror apologist, a Terrorist-lover or worse, all for the thought crime of raising these issues. To do so, they deceitfully conflate claims of causation (A is one of the causes of B) with justification (B is justified). Anyone operating with the most basic levels of rationality understands that these concepts are distinct. To discuss what motivates a person to engage in Action B is not remotely to justify Action B."

[Old Johnnie Goggabie]

Can't say that I blame them. Considering what their elites have done to their country in the years since, they might have been better off taking their chances with Hitler.

[Redmanfms]

Read the article. Mostly racists bitching about faces of color, gay-hating socons, and disappointed free-shitters:

'We are affronted by the appearance of Muslim and Sikh costumes on our streets.'

'I disagree with same-sex marriages, schoolgirl mothers, rubbish TV programmes, so-called celebrities and, most of all, unlimited immigration.

A widow from Solihull blamed the Thatcher years 'when we started to lose all our industry and profit became the only aim in life'.