It is finished.

I know this really happened on Sunday, but I needed some time to digest and then got a little busy.

The final episode of "The Pacific" is over.

Now comes the reflection and the summary, and most important, the grade.

The final episode mostly dealt with life immediately following the declaration of peace. It very much mirrored "Points" in Band of Brothers, except for the decidedly less stressful time for the Marines after VJ Day as opposed to the three months of Limbo the 101st felt between VE and VJ Day. The inevitable post trauma the surviving main characters feel is realistic, not overly done and accurate.

The absolute most heartbreaking moment in the entire 10 episode series are the small biographies at the end. Almost 90% of the characters depicted in the story that survived the war are now dead. The majority of them died in the late nineties. The rest died since 2001. Maybe two are still alive. Two.

When I was Claire's age I couldn't turn around and not trip over a WW2 vet. Most of my grandfather's close friends were combat veterans. So whenever we would visit and Ray Honnal and Art Barneveld were over, the occasional war story would leak out. This is an aspect of my childhood I desperately wish my kids could share.

It is a monumental work that I give two thumbs WAY up. It demands to be placed right next to Band of Brothers in terms of essential WW2 viewing. I have all the episodes on DVR but will purchase them as soon as they become available on DVD.

A+